By autumn, retailers appeared eager to discount the computer, with prices in stores as low as £100, reportedly less than the distributor prices of the summer months. As the Christmas season approached, Dixons Retail acquired the remaining Electron inventory to sell, bundled with a cassette recorder and software, at a retail price of £99.95, effectively bringing to an end Acorn's interest in the Electron and the home computing market but empowering third-party suppliers whose "inventiveness and initiative" contrasted with Acorn's lack of interest and "false promises". Acorn subsequently released the Master Compact - a model in the Master series of microcomputers with fewer BBC Micro-style ports and a similar expansion connector to that used by the Electron - with the home audience specifically in mind. Indeed, prior to its release, the Master Compact had been perceived as the successor to the Electron. Superficial similarities between the Compact and Acorn Communicator, together with technical similarities between the Electron (particularly when expanded in the form of the Merlin M2105) and the Communicator, may also have driven rumours of an updated Electron model.