Q&A: Dan Ross

Timex has changed a lot since the days when it used to strap its watches to snowplows for TV commercials. Today Timex is one of the contenders for the brass ring of mass-marketing microcomputer sales.

Following last year’s million-selling Timex/Sinclair 1000, Timex recently shipped its color computer, the T/S 2068, a $199 48K RAM computer based on the Sinclair Spectrum from England.

During a recent visit to InfoWorld, Dan Ross, vice-president of Timex Computer Corporation, demonstrated some impressive software on the 2068, including a flight simulator, a three-dimensional graphics editor and a computerized Scrabble game.

How much of a dominant force is Timex going to be in the home market?

We’re unique in that we have 22 facilities around the world that we can draw on to build our product. Wherever we have capacity, wherever we’re getting components from we can call on those resources. This is a definite advantage over anybody else in the industry.

In the area of marketing, I think our record in introducing the world’s first computer for less than $100 gives you a little feel for the ability that we have there. I think we’re very efficient in our manufacturing efforts.

In the area of distribution, we went from zero last year in August when we launched the T/S 1000 to having 15,000 outlets selling our product. We feel that we can bring on the same distribution plus others for the new lines of products we are bringing to the marketplace.

Have sales of the 1000 peaked?

We’re in a consumer-electronics industry. It’s a cyclical business. We anticipated our sales would not be as high in the months of May, June and July as they were in the months of October, November and December.

Is the 1000 a product that’s reached the end of its life?

We’re expanding into new channels of distribution, including education. We see education being an excellent market for our particular products. We can put together a whole lab, 20 computers in the classroom, for the price of one Apple computer.

The National Education Association did a mailer to 67,000 librarians across the company. It offered for sale the T/S 1000 to put in libraries. People would check them out just like they do books. This gave the use of our computers to people regardless of their economic structures. I think that people over time will begin migrating to the T/S 1500 product.

Commodore’s Jack Tramiel has said he doesn’t want to be in a business where he has to educate the consumer. Do you feel the same way?

No. I think that’s one of our responsibilities. I think he’s being a bit hypocritical because he’s calling on schools just like we are and trying to train people about computing.

Are there plans to use the Sinclair flat TV in your computers?

We are manufacturing the flat-screen TV tubes for Sinclair in our Dundee, Scotland facility. We have the rights to use that product.

We don’t really announce products until we’re ready to come into a market. I think there’s too much hype in this industry already. We’ll bring it to the market when we feel it’s a producible project — in the 1984 or 1985 time frame. Clive’s stretching the technology to its fullest.

What do you think of the new MSX software standard?

I think as an industry one of the things we have to do is come up with some type of standardization. To me, it’s ludicrous for one hardware manufacturer to bring out one version of a game and for somebody else to have to go through the effort of writing it again because everybody’s hardware is different.

I think MSX and the Japanese-consortium announcement could have a long term effect on the marketplace. I think there will be a combination of standards. Today you see IBM establishing a standard with the PC.

We haven’t announced any plans to support MSX. There may be a Timex standard or someone else’s. We’ve got a goodly number of computers our there right now.