Amstrad's integrated 'phone and email device is being withdrawn from retail sale after poor sales this year provoked the company to pull the emailer.

Amstrad shifted 61,000 units during the year - which Amstrad described as: "currently the worst high street retail market for many years". The board is writing off £5.7m to cover anticipated costs.

Amstrad Plc made a profit before tax of £19.1m on turnover of £102.5m for the year ended 30 June 2005. It expects to continue collecting usage revenue of £7.3m from the 429,000 installed devices.

The group will be putting its faith in the modestly-titled Sir Alan Sugar Enterprise Scheme or SASES - essentially a way to encourage customers to become sellers of products in exchange for changing levels of commission.

The company is already selling a "unique face care system" using the power of SASES. First you buy the product for £129 and sign up for an account. Then, once you persuade some other punter to buy an electric face-cloth, you receive £15 in commission - sell to just eleven people and you've paid for your clean face and have a quid to spend on soap.

Additionally, you receive commission should any of the people you sign up go on to sell further machines.

Full financial results from Amstrad here (http://www.amstrad.com/news_latest.html).

Related stories

Sir Alan Sugar unveils East End supercomputer (3 May 2007)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/03/sugar_viglen_cluster/
Sugar wins the ratings war (24 February 2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/02/24/sugar_wins_the_ratings_war/
Amstrad's em@ilers are going, going... (23 February 2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/02/23/amstrad_emailer/
Brits talk posh on the blower (30 March 2005)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/30/brits_posh/
Amstrad slashes cost of E3 e-mailer (23 March 2005)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/23/amstrad_e3/
Amstrad blows £2m plugging E3 (28 October 2004)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/28/amstrad_e3/
Sloppy emailing is bad for business (20 September 2004)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/20/email_survey/
Amstrad unveils £99 videophone (15 September 2004)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/15/amstrad_e3_launch/
Amstrad's em@iler makes a profit (19 February 2004)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/02/19/amstrads_em_iler_makes/
Amstrad promo cuts e-m@iler price in half (2 January 2003)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/01/02/amstrad_promo_cuts_em_iler/