Drop dead shrewd?
Hands up all those who recall the article in The Business back in Febuary?
See: http://thebusiness.co.uk/top-stories/34932/in-the-dock.thtml
Apparently shareholders were pressing for greater innovation against accusations that a drop in pre-tax profits was due to "Amstrad's failure to refresh its product line".
Surely the shrewd move would have been to have invested the £30m unspent cash as returned to shareholders in more customer oriented research & development? Perhaps he could even have used The Apprentice to recruit somebody to do that but, alas and alack, AMS chose to focus on getting more sales staff to sell outdated and unreliable products to customers who don't realise they are paying a premium for tat they don't really need. Yes, the last part of that sentence is paraphrasing what AMS said when firing Dr Sophie...
So, it seems the shrewd move is to sell up and move on rather than to revitalise and encourage UK technology businesses. As Alistair says, I hope Murdoch keeps the receipt!
BTW: For those that are interested, The Apprentice winner is actually engaged in trying to sell land near Stansted on AMS behalf. Interesting outcome considering the last two were engaged in trying to develop new consumer goods/services.
Ah well. The man becomes more like Donald Trump everyday. :)