Settling in at Grove House and fielding media interviews with the Radio 4 Today programme and Computer Weekly about recent microcomputer company failures and IBM’s welcome into the Alvey initiative as ‘A good British Company’ as Kode’s Peter Smith returns from his honeymoon and we arrange to meet tomorrow
A good night’s sleep and up at the normal time and opportunity to read today’s newspaper before breakfast. Quickly to work at my new building – Grove House – and I unlocked the gates and front door and investigated the heating and lighting systems until the builders arrived at 9.00am. By 9.30am both furniture suppliers had arrived with lorries full of new furniture and the rest of the morning was spent lifting our goods about, unpacking and tidying up the place. Lunchtime together eating sandwiches and drinking coffee and then my own things arrived in early afternoon and I set my own office up by the evening.
Phone calls with the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme about the bankruptcy last week of Computers, Dragon, and Tycam and I deny that it is solely down to IBM, pointing out that the mass entrance of companies into the fold was bound to lead to a subsequent rationalisation. I phone Nigel Smith and we agree our public stance which is that British Micro Companies should join the BMMG and users could rely on well organised cooperative suppliers who show their common resolve in this way. We also agree that Brian Oakley’s latest remarks that welcome IBM to the Alvey Initiative as “a good British Company” have finally lost all support we ever had for his Alvey Initiative. I phone Keith Holder of Computer Weekly and record that the BMMG are now against the continuance of the initiative and are calling for its disbandment. Contact today with Peter Smith of Kode, back from his honeymoon in Portugal. Still much to do and we agree to meet tomorrow afternoon in London before his evening dinner with John and Peter on share tradeups. After 5pm my family and mother-in-law come bounding up the stairs and truncate an evening and I decide to go home for a hamburger tea and to do some household accounts. After tea I watch Viv Richards and the West Indies beat England in the final and deciding one-day test before getting down to work.