Alan Sugar is now ensconced as chief executive and chairman of IT hardware group Amstrad following Bob Watkins' decision to leave the chief executive chair after dismal trading in the six months to December. The group, which supplies digital set top boxes to BSkyB and produces a range of consumer electronics goods, saw sales in the period shrink to £19.6m (£44.1m) and pre-tax profits fall from £1.5m to £0.92m. A lot of problems surrounded Amserve, the joint venture with Dixon's that makes a newfangled e-mail telephone. Amserve's loss before tax attributable to the group was £1.6m on sales of just £1.2m (£2.7m). To address the problem of Amserve, Amstrad increased its stake in the joint venture to 88.98% (after buying an additional £12m worth of new stock in the joint venture in September) and consolidated Amserve as a subsidiary rather than a joint venture. The big hope for the future rests with a second generation e-mail phone with internet access and other accessories. Whether the great British public will embrace it in sufficient numbers to make the product viable is unknown. What is known is that there are other technology stocks on the market more attractive than Amstrad. Avoid.