In 1986, John Whitehead described the Amstrad PCW as "the bargain of the decade", and technology writer Gordon Laing said in 2007, "It represented fantastic value at a time when an IBM compatible or a Mac would cost a comparative fortune." At its United Kingdom launch in September 1985, the basic PCW model was priced at £399 plus value added tax, which included a printer, word processor program, the CP/M operating system and associated utilities, and a BASIC interpreter. Software vendors quickly made a wide range of additional applications available, including accounting, spreadsheet and database programs, so that the system was able to support most of the requirements of a home or small business.