Will Sir Alan still be able to offer the winning candidate a job at Amstrad for a year? Photograph: BBC
The sale of Amstrad to Sky is, above all, very bad news for the winner of this year's Apprentice who we all remember as whatsisname-who-wasn't-Katie. All that hinting and teasing Sir Alan did about how he was getting on in years and looking for a successor; an heir apparent even. What a load of twaddle that was. I bet he was giving James Murdoch the come-hither eyes the whole time.
But beyond the shocking news that the chap responsible for the greatest TV moment of the year isn't necessarily chief executive material, it's hard to detail exactly the implications of Sir Alan Sugar's deal with Sky, not least - let's be honest - because no one is entirely sure what Amstrad does. Sure, we're aware of the Amstrad Emailer from its many appearances in The Apprentice. An episode would not be complete without a perversely clunky and unstreamlined phone call from Frances in Sir Alan's office instructing the contestants to shift themselves to "London's Oxford Street" for a motivating pep talk and barked task instructions.
But surely there must be more to the Amstrad business than the Emailer (not least because The Apprentice is the only place anyone has knowingly ever seen one)? Oh yes. There is the set-top box technology. Amstrad makes set-top boxes (as do Pace, Thomson and some others) for Sky. Now Sky will own Amstrad's box technology and can do some streamlining of its suppliers and presumably make more money. See, you already want to know less about the implications. It is the world's dullest deal.
Let's focus then on the only thing we really care about: Will Sir Alan still be able to offer the winning candidate a job at Amstrad for a year? Will Sir Alan be seen on the emailer-phone to a shadowy figure with a slight Australian accent? Will the winning candidate face searching questions over whether they can relocate to Sky's outer London retail park home of Osterley instead of Amstrad's Essex retail park home of Brentwood. And most revealing of all, does the fact that Sir Alan has sold out for a mere £125m suggest that Amstrad was always, whisper it, a bit rubbish?
