Oric's plan to take the French market by storm with its Stratos computer has suffered a major setback as Oric moves to foreign manufacturing.

The 64K machine with 6502 processor, two ROM slots and two joystick ports was scheduled to make its debut this month. But Oric has announced a change of tactics and the computer will now be available in March.

Bruce Everiss, managing director of Tansoft, said: "It looks as though the Stratos will be manufactured in France and not the UK as originally planned.

"The French Government tends to support new technology more than the government over here. We've designed the Stratos around French requirements because that will be its initial market."

But with only two months to get its act together, Oric still has to package the machine and produce a manual before it can go into full production. As for the UK, it's still unclear whether the Stratos will be available under another name. Everiss said: "The first six months of this year are going to be tough.

"There's going to be a computer price war - and we're going to see what happens before we make any commitments in the UK."