Amstrad Plc has clearly identified telephones and personal telecommunications as its next major area for growth, and following its preliminary agreement to market telephones made by Alcatel NV in Spain, the company is seriously interested in the government’s proposed Personal Communications Networks. STC Plc has reportedly picked Denver Baby Bell US West Inc to partner it on a bid for one of the Personal Communications Network licences on offer, and according to the Financial Times, Amstrad is likely to join the STC consortium. Mercury Communications has already been granted a provisional licence, and one or two more are on offer. Main contender so far is the GEC Plc-Plessey Co-BellSouth Corp consortium.Frustrated at press discussion of hard disk failures on its PC2286 and PC2386 upmarket personal computers, Amstrad has instituted a recall programme covering all hard disk models sold to customers or with distributors and dealers, replacing them with machines with a re-engineered disk controller. The hard disk failure rate, whilst low, is unacceptable to us, but rumours in the market suggest wholesale failure and we cannot al-low our reputation as suppliers of reliable equipment to be damaged, the company says. Endusers can get the machine changed and their data transferred over by Dictaphone Ltd.
