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Isn't parasitically leeching off other's ideas what Sir Alan has built his career on?
Pootmatoot
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Amstrad's success was based on the computer know-how and injection-molding breakthroughs of others that he marketed. Viglen and Youview were all other people's ideas he bought out.
He's not a Steve Jobs or a Clive Sinclair. He's not the inspirational mind behind anything or an innovator, he's the fixer or facilitator.... exactly what Jordan was proposing.
He's not a Steve Jobs or a Clive Sinclair. He's not the inspirational mind behind anything or an innovator, he's the fixer or facilitator.... exactly what Jordan was proposing.
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I don't disagree with that, just that being a mddle man is exactly what Sir Alan has done... hence not wanting a second middle man.
That is not a fair assessment. True, Lord Sugar does not wield a soldering iron or write operating systems himself, but he does conceive and innovate products. Ford did not invent the motor car.
Basically, Lord Sugar had 4, 5 or 6 good ideas over the decades, which is more than most. Injection moulded hifi plinths being the first, and at which he had a virtual monopoly. Then all-in-one (tower) hifi at a time when hifi systems were sold as separate record decks, amplifiers, speakers and so on. Then word processors and computers (Amstrad was the second largest pc maker in Europe) and satellite tv boxes (a duopoly with Pace).
If you look at Dragons Den, only Hilary Devey created a new solution, the rest are in established sectors, so Lord Sugar is ahead of the Dragons (and, conversely, most business is not about innovation but execution).
In your examples, Lord Sugar is more like Steve Jobs -- conceiving products that others build -- than Clive Sinclair -- inventing but too often failing to sell what often look like prototypes. Nor is he like Richard Branson, say, or most of the Dragons, who take existing ideas and do them better.
This also gives an insight into The Apprentice. He is not looking for the best plan: he is looking for a good plan with someone who can actually carry it out.
I don't disagree with any of that, but it's not a million miles aware from what Jordan proposed - spotting someone else's innovative solution and wanting to capitalise on it - that was described as parasitic. That terms wasn't just used because he wasn't on the papers as an owner, but the idea that middle men leech on the ideas of others.
Sugar was not a middle man. He created new products. It is hard to be certain about Jordan which is why I confined my comparisons to other well-known business figures.
The test for Jordan is whether he devised a new solution (in which case, why did he need the particular techie with the company and co-founder rather than just commissioning any software house to write it?) or was just using someone else's idea (in which case, what value did Jordan add to Lord Sugar's money and the techie's existing product?).
For Apprentice purposes, the point is moot since Jordan was offering a percentage of a company that was not his to sell (and the wrong percentage at that).
Lord Sugar built up his money through market trading etc (he may have mentioned this
Jordan wanted to be given money for somebody else's work. Not comparable imho.
The vast bulk of the money would still have been a bank loan.... not radically different.
And Jordan is more than free to go get a loan, to expand a business he doesn't own on an idea which he has no rights to!
Oh, I'm not defending Jordan at all, just that the insinuation that he was a hanger on was rather unfair... he was a crappy candidate for a host of other reasons!
As far as I understand it, Lord Sugar would not pursue the winners for the return of his investment should the business fail. A bank generally would. If I'm wrong, then the Apprentice is the worst game/reality show ever...:eek:
He's not an innovator, or an inventor of any sorts. He looks for people to go to him with ideas, and then decides whether he'll take the risk of buying into it. And he's not very good at that. He bought up all the ZX Spectrum chips, just when the arse fell out of it. Nice one.
As I said, his business was saved by the Sky box contract. It would never have survived, otherwise. Let's face it, everything Amstrad produced, was shit. There's a big difference between cheap, but value for money. And just cheap shit, that breaks when you look at it.
Double-decker vcr's, And the Amstrad word processor,complete with daisy-wheel printer. Wow!! that was the business.:rolleyes::D
We were not really given enough information about Jordan's proposal to tell if he, Jordan, was adding any value or not. He'd have been fired anyway because the deal he sought was (a) not what Lord Sugar was offering, and (b) not within Jordan's gift since he had no stake in the company. It was just a mess.
Middle-men can add value -- marketing, distribution and umpteen others. Most are not parasites but offer genuine and valuable services without which the economy would collapse. Jordan may or may not have been a parasite. Lord Sugar did not make his money from being a middle-man.
See above. There had been a number of big hits before that.
Not true on either count.
Not really, though it was obviously significant. It also kind of implies that Rupert Murdoch did not share your evaluation of Amstrad's products.
Then don't buy it. That is your freedom. Clearly, a lot of people disagreed with you and did buy Amstrad products. That was their freedom.
An awful lot of Britons were introduced to computing and word processing via Amstrad word processors, including many who became professional writers.
They were affordable at a time when office computers, word processing software and printers would have set you back thousands of pounds.
But IMO shit. That's why I, and many others didn't buy it
Sugar proved to be a natural entrepreneur, but one mostly motivated by money and nothing else. He had no care or passion for his products, it was all stack them high sell em cheap. Jobs was driven by something more, he had a vision that got developed over the years and he was very passionate about it. It is just not the same.
AMSTRAD was rubbish and went bust because in a dynamic and changing environment as it is technology, you can not rest on your laurels and sell crap. Most of the innovation was coming from America so if you were not based there you are doomed. Sugar´s chance would have been becoming a PC assembler as Dell. Cheap computers, reasonable quality, stack them up and sell them cheap. He did not manage to do that cause If I am not mistaken everything went pear shaped when one of his suppliers, Seagate (hard drives), supplied him with faulty drives, from that moment AMSTRAD never recovered. Also his time as Tottenham Chairman was terrible.
Sugar was a very good start-up entrepreneur. But as CEO he doesn´t cut it.
Yes well Alan sugar is worth about 800 million so he obviously did quite well out of the people that did buy it. So Stop acting like a troll.
As for Steve jobs - this always makes me laugh Steve jobs invented NOTHING - tablet computers existed in 2001, mp3 players existed long before the iPod, Steve jobs stole the graphic user interface from another company -
I'm not sure if. OP is also trying to be a troll or they clearly know nothing about business.
Taking a current product and improving it is not what Jason did.
Tom pellereu took the nail file... And Made it S shaped. He improved it, bettered it and in doing so made a new product / business.
In a lot of business you don't have to invent some thig new. You can take a current product and improve it (so long as you don't copy patents and so on). Like if you could make better cheaper pasties than greggs then there is nothing stopping you starting a bakery
What Jordan wanted to do was get a fee for matching lord sugar to some one else's business! He did nothing innovative and had no business. Jordan is no different to these compare the market websites who are also parasites that live off the success of other insurance companies
Still doesn't make him an innovator or creator. No one's questioning his success. But he's just a wealthy investor. I'm sure his fortune wasn't accrued just by sales of AMSTRAD stuff. Love it when people use the easy option of accusing others of trolling. When all it is is a different opinion to theirs. If people come in to the chat forums, they have to be prepared for views that differ from their own. Isn't that what it's all about? We'd have no debate if we all just agreed with each other. Makes life more interesting for most people.
Also isn't the mac built off linux?
We saw how useless Tom was at most things on the tasks that series. He had taken his nail file as far as he could. Is he able to run to someone else even in the unlikley event he might ever want to?