Softly, softly

David Kelly talks to Sue Currier, President of the US software house, SoftSync.

SoftSync is one of only several companies in America independently producing and marketing software for the Timex/Sinclair machines – material referred to in the US as third-party software.

Like so many companies thriving in the home computer boom, SoftSync came into being by happy accident rather than design. Sue Currier was working as a model in New York with she was asked by Alfred Milgrom of Melbourne House if she would start a mail-order software company to sell his programs for the ZX80.

She began to sell his two 1K arcade games and quickly built up an extensive mail-order list of ZX80 owners. At about this time Sinclair sent out Nigel Searle to set up an American office and the two got together. “Nigel would take my tapes all over — it helped sell the machines and he put fly sheets in the boxes pushing our tapes. And voila, SoftSync came into being!”

Sue then began casting around, building up her own list of software from programmers in the US. In June 1982 she came over to the UK to license material. “Having has the ZX81 for much longer, you were well ahead of us. The first people I looked up were Quicksilva — I took three games from them — and Bug-Byte’s Mazogs. Both were outright winners in Britain at that time.”

“At around the same time I began to get a great number of submissions from programmers in the US who read the advertisements for our software in magazines like Sync and Syntax and sent stuff in hoping we would distribute it for them. We got so many I had to take on a full-time programmer to sort through them. Occasionally we’d get a real winner. Eventually I built up a group of about 20 programmers who produce material for us.”

“SoftSync began to take off and things got ridiculous – I was modelling in the daytime and running the business at all hours through the night. At the beginning of June I gave up the struggle and quit modelling!”

All of SoftSync’s tapes are manufactuered in two laboratories in New Jersey and Connecticut and delivered to the company’s New York office. Here Sue has a crew of what she calls “out-of-work actors” who come in from 4pm to midnight to check and pack the tapes into boxes. “Office space is very expensive in New York, so as soon as the office is not an office, we use it as a packing room – it’s an efficient system.”

In August, Timex took over marketing of the ZX81 – calling it the Timex/Sinclair 1000. “When they began selling the machine over the counter, the whole thing fell apart. It changed from a small tightly-knit group of ’81 owners to a totally fragmented mess – no one could find the owners.”

“People go into a store, buy a TS1000 and disappear. There are no specialist magazines on the stands as there are in Britain and so there is no way of getting in touch with them to provide any sort of back-up. Obviously out business has increased, but only by a very small fraction of those who have bought a TS1000 in the last six months. Between August and December last year, Timex sold 600,000 machines.”

The only solution was for SoftSync to establish its own sales force. The US is divided into 18 districts or buying offices – and these districts apply across the board for all types of consumer goods. Each district sales office was contracted to go round the stores with SoftSync’s tapes.

“What Timex did for me was to tell their salesmen to recommend us if any of their buyers wanted third-party material.”

In January, everyone trooped off to Las Vegas where Timex announced the American version of the Spectrum – the TS2000. “Since then the whole market has creaked,” says Sue.

“In the US people want the version with all the bells and whistles, so Timex have had to change their Spectrum to accept ROM cartridges – and that has mean the 2000 won’t appear until at least June.”

“But when they announced the TS2000 in January, the bottom fell out of the TS1000 market. In effect, Timex has killed the TS1000 too soon. Now they are worried because Texas [Instruments] are being very aggressive at the moment and the Commodore 64 is selling well for about $400 and the rumor is that they will drop its price to under $300.”

“So, Timex must now spend some of its advertising budget allocated to the TS2000 on the TS1000. If they don’t try to get back the 1000 market, there won’t be a market for the 2000 when it eventually goes on sale.”

“People in Britain find it very difficult to understand when I tell them the TS1000 market is dead in the US. With a million machines sold it doesn’t seem possible, but there is buyer resistance now. If my salesman goes into a store in, say, Oklahoma, the buyer for the store says that since the TS1000 isn’t selling he doesn’t want any software.”

“It is now a question of turning the buyers around – otherwise the software will never get as far as the consumer.”

“Timex started re-running the TS1000 advertisements last week which they haven’t done since October. By the time I get back to the US I hope it will be showing signs of picking up – I just think how lucky we were to get our tapes out by October last year when they could still be sold.”

“There is a huge market there, but I cannot reach it. For ourselves, we are placing more advertisements, particularly in what I call the retail rags – those magazines aimed specifically at the buyers to try to change their minds.”

“Another major worry is rack-jobbing. This is a new phenomenon which could screw the industry. As the software market for the US goes retail, the big chains are not interested in buying from individual suppliers. They only want to buy from so-called rack-jobbers. These are companies that buy the software and go round all the stores and fill up and check the racks. This takes a load off the store manager’s mind – he doesn’t need to know what is selling and what to order.”

“The problem is that these rack-jobbers want huge discounts – they are talking about 85 percent off the selling price. Now I can’t sell to them at those sort of discounts and neither can anybody else. Rack-jobbing, if it gets a hold, will potentially put all the third-party software houses out of business.”

Sue reckons that three or four machines will sell competitively over the next three years – those from Timex, TI and Commodore. “I’m going to being distributing software for the Commodore 64, TI 99/4 and 99/2 as well as the Sinclair computers – whichever one sells I’ll be there!”

“I have been over in Britain looking-up the Spectrum. My software will be ready to go the minute the TS2000 is ready. As for the 64, there is no software for it either in Britain or the States – but I expect there to be a huge amount appearing very soon.”

“In many ways, the American market is a year-and-a-half behind that in the UK. For example, there are only two specialist microcomputer magazines in the US – and they both have a small circulation.”

Sue grins: “I am not as negative as I sound about the American situation. I think the market in the US has done pretty much what it did in Britain when the Spectrum was announced. It is just a lull.”