Slashdot Mirror
Raspberry Pi Now Has Distributors -- and Will Soon Have Boards for All (Video)
In an exclusive Transatlantic Skype conversation with Slashdot editor Timothy Lord recorded on Feb. 22, Raspberry Pi project leader Eben Upton talks about the state of Raspberry Pi, and tells us that yes -- finally -- they now have distributors in the U.S. and other countries instead trying to ship every unit from the U.K. Even better, instead of buying a batch of boards, selling them, and only then ordering another batch, the new distribution agreements mean they can keep a steady flow of orders coming in and going out. One slight downer is that people who have donated to the project may not get their Pi(s) right away; the distributors have spoken for all of the current order. Eben talks about this, and about how Raspberry Pi is going to take care of contributors, starting at about 4:15 in the video. You can also look at an in-person interview Tim did with Eben in January -- or wait until the end of today's video for a list of other Raspberry Pi videos.
Mind moving the cursor somewhere else, please?
Can you not activate videos unless and until I click 'Play'? Not everybody has unlimited broadband
They went on sale this morning, and almost immediately downed the websites of two large electronics suppliers (RS and Farnell). By the time I had got to work, the sites were back up but that is largely because they didn't have anymore Raspberry Pis to sell.
That is the kind of reception that Apple wishes the iPad 3 would get (although it probably won't.)
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
So... Those who donated to the project prior to completion have to wait for their boards while the folk who order direct get them shipped first?
I can't help but think that this is a giant "fuck you, revenue comes first" to those who believed in the project from the start. Yeah, even charities have to pay their staff, and I understand that, and I hope I've just misunderstood. Otherwise, poor form guys.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Unfortunately it didn't really work out as planned. Farnell and RS was DDoSed a long time from 6 am to about 12. And there is still problems for people outside the UK to buy the rasp. I'm in Sweden and Farnells liks to the pre-order does not have Sweden in it's list. RS on the other hand requires a company to "express an interest in raspberry" (it says nothing about pre-order). So even now when the sites is working again I'm still unable to order a Rasp.
This makes me wonder why they didn't team up with a firm that is known globally and can handle traffic like e-bay or amazon?
Managed to order mine from Farnell this morning. Took almost a whole hour of refreshes & timeouts considering that i already had an account on their site. RS Online did not accepted any orders, they only have a "register for updates" page.
The DDoS of the Farnell & RS-Online servers caused by the announcement was massive (and still is for Farnell).
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
You had to realise to find a retailer that sells ("retails"...) stuff from the distributors. I ordered mine from my local electronics retailer and will be getting it in the "second" batch.
I admit rasp pi foundation could and SHOULD have done a lot better in this, explaining the situation better and what to expect from the distributors.
wow, are you me? Because you almost word for word repeated my comments from another site.
When I tried to comment on the "company only" ordering in Denmark, they kept retweeting comments from british users who said something like "you don't have to fill out the company name". After 3 hours they didn't feel like commenting on the fact that ordering was impossible for individuals in many countries.
Oh, and it took around 1½ hours of F5'ing to GET to the last step in the order process, the part where you have to fill out the "vat registration number" for companies. That was a funny surprise. A heads up BEFORE I tried to order would have been nice.
You know, apart from the 10 they sold via E-Bay, this whole project has been a self funded "Not For Profit" charity...??
They activity REFUSED to do pre-orders (and accept money), stating that they would only take money once they had the physical devices in their hands in the UK.
They said it would be a world wide release and all profits would be out back in to building the net batch.
A scene in a living room in the Netherlands, just finishing my second cup of coffee...The Raspberrypi.org site displayed a cryptic message late yesterday which trigger a change notification email to me. This morning it has been down.
0700 CET, I hit refresh, again. Suddenly the raspberrypi.org site is alive again.
Huh, who are these Premier Farnell and RS Components companies? I'd expected these in the store on raspberry.com.
Ah well...
Farnell crashes in the first 90 seconds and stays down. RS has a few international sites that occasionally show signs of live. The Raspberry Pi is listed for 27,49 excluding tax. Including tax that $25-$35 computer suddenly sells for $42,50. Ah well.. oh, and 6 euros shipping ex tax. Hm, site crashes again. Hang on, they don't really want to deliver to consumers when an order is less than 50 euros.
Farnell has now been visited by some people and this company is at least as bad. In quite a few countries it seems not to do business with consumers at all.
At almost 1000 I finally manage to stay on a site long enough to actually click something into the basket. By then the feeble stocks have long been depleted.
What I wonder...
- why work with distributors who do NOT want to sell to private individuals?
- why work with consumers who are obviously unwilling or unable to handle a sizeable traffic load?
- Why such a small batch of boards in the first place?
Disappointing all around. I'm sure I'll get one sooner or later but I'm not going to pay a fortune for one.
This seems to have gotten lost in the commotion, but they also announced that the $25 Model A will be produced with the same amount of RAM as the $35 Model B (256 MB). Originally the Model A was only going to have 128 MB, so now the only difference is the Model B has an ethernet port. The Model A is going into production immediately.
Better known as 318230.
Paypal is free to use with a bank account. Credit cards can charge significant subscription fees. Combined with the universal acceptance of debit cards and you see relatively few credit cards in this country.
I pre-ordered from Farnell with no issue at all. No minimum amount, no company details (it's geared at that, but I ignored it), and "Home / Hobby" was even an option in the list of job roles.
Stop being such a whiny self-centred crybaby. Do you really think they intended their servers to crash like this? FFS, just wait a few days and register your interest then. I assume the Raspberry Pi will produced in numbers to meet demand for a long time to come and it will be simple enough to obtain one.
Given the amount of "rasberry pi" articles that there have been lately, also the availability of google (which will tell you in three clicks) it's not necessary. Are we supposed to start every hard disk story with an explanation of what a hard disk is as well?
No sig today...
How about we dedicate a story to every time Microsoft writes a line of code in Windows?
I'd be far more interested to know when they remove a line of code.
One of my most productive days was throwing away 1000 lines of code. - Ken Thompson
These guys have figured out how to get people to just GIFT them money to develop the product, which they can then sell at a huge profit, that they can keep for themselves.
They are a charity registered as such in England.
You can see their accounts (presented to the British Government) here: http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/Showcharity/RegisterOfCharities/CharityWithoutPartB.aspx?RegisteredCharityNumber=1129409&SubsidiaryNumber=0 (but it seems, as they have had a turnover of less than £10000 so far, they don't need to file detailed accounts).
Paypal is free to use with a bank account. Credit cards can charge significant subscription fees. Combined with the universal acceptance of debit cards and you see relatively few credit cards in this country.
So pay with a debit card.
You mean you've managed to miss all of the Slashdot stories thus far?
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/02/21/1324246/get-a-glimpse-at-the-raspberry-pi-fedora-remix?utm_source=feedburnerGoogle+Reader&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+(Slashdot)&utm_content=Google+Reader
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/02/13/2147203/despite-media-confusion-raspberry-pi-boards-still-on-schedule?utm_source=feedburnerGoogle+Reader&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+(Slashdot)&utm_content=Google+Reader
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/02/07/0332248/first-run-of-raspberry-pi-boards-to-be-completed-feb-20th?utm_source=feedburnerGoogle+Reader&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+(Slashdot)&utm_content=Google+Reader
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/01/31/203229/why-the-raspberry-pi-wont-ship-in-kit-form?utm_source=feedburnerGoogle+Reader&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+(Slashdot)&utm_content=Google+Reader
http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/01/25/1543239/xbmc-running-on-raspberry-pi?utm_source=feedburnerGoogle+Reader&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+(Slashdot)&utm_content=Google+Reader
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/01/17/0014220/raspberry-pi-25-linux-computer-now-in-production-video?utm_source=feedburnerGoogle+Reader&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+(Slashdot)&utm_content=Google+Reader
http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/01/11/1332222/british-schoolchildren-to-get-programming-lessons?utm_source=feedburnerGoogle+Reader&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+(Slashdot)&utm_content=Google+Reader
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/01/09/1413253/raspberry-pi-gertboard-in-action?utm_source=feedburnerGoogle+Reader&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+(Slashdot)&utm_content=Google+Reader
That's just this year.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
For mishandling the launch of a £22 gadget that you're interested in playing with, you'll attempt to destroy the current and future professional relationships they have with company you work for?
I think we've found a new definition for vindictive!
Overreact much?
I was hoping that would be available at the same time as the pi
I don't think I've ever heard of a credit card charging its customers for transactions or general service - why would anyone use one if they did?
Many cards charge an additional fee for foreign transactions. This might not be a concern if you live and shop in the US, or indeed many large countries (UK, Germany etc). But if you live in a small country there might not be a local retailer for everything.
The news here really isn't the retailers that have signed up, it is the fact that the distribution model has now changed. The retailers are licensing the board designs and handing their own manufacturing, which means that the 10,000 order limit and months lead time will disappear, since both were limitations of the Pi Foundation not having enough money in the bank to finance large scale manufacturing.
There is absolutely no reason why other manufacturers can't license the designs, e.g. Foxconn could license it, make it in their factories, and ship direct into their existing shipping channels. Chinese factories can turn this out and ship direct on ebay. If the Pi Foundation is now ready to license to everyone (I presume the licenses with Farnell and RS are not exclusive) this is going to end up making the Pi available more widely and more cheaply than they could ever have done with their direct manufacturing model.
Seriously, look at ARM or any of the other electronics design companies, and then tell me that licensed manufacturing isn't going to work better. This one change to the business model will increased their capacity from 10,000 units every 8 weeks or so, up to whatever is financially viable for third party licensers to invest. It means their manufacturing capabilty can scale to demand, instead of being limited by the fixed amount of money they have in the bank.
Those who donated to the project prior to completion have to wait for their boards while the folk who order direct get them shipped first?
Why don't you let the people who donated comment instead of putting words in their mouths? How about this hypothesis: many donors saw a charity with a good idea, one that they liked and wanted to support, and they saw their donation as exactly that and nothing more - there was no guarantee that they would be first in line, and they didn't expect that there would be any such guarantee in the future. They just wanted to show their support for a cool project that had little financial backing.
When you donate to a charity, do you always expect to get something in return? Is that how you think the world works for everyone?
Please return your Geek card for a full refund.
> no, yes, maybe (tagging beta)
Instead, they gave us company-orders only, minimum order amounts of €50, creditcard only and only to a select amount of countries.
I've just ordered mine as an individual (not a company) for ~£25 (less than €50) using a debit card.
Found the "Urgent Order Information" in the inbox - mine is due 26 March. I called Farnell this morning and they said they are yet to receive any RPis in stock (in EU), so all their orders were pre-orders, and if they get them faster, they will be shipped faster.
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
Am I the only one losing interest in this? I was really stoked at first, dreaming of all the possibilities of what could be done with such an inexpensive computer. I was considering it's use as everything from a very powerful microcontroler to a server and even a desktop. Right off the bat I wanted two to build car computers, one for a lightweight, power sipping and silent development server and another to use as an X-terminal on my workbench.
The problem is the display. The lack of VGA output means all those cheap monitors that everyone has in their closets are useless. I'm not even talking about bulky power hungry CRTs, I can't even use the older LCDs that I have lying around. That really kills the price advantage this board would have had. I know, I'm not the target market, schools or kids are. Apparently it's the less financially advantaged schools, the one I went to had a computer lab as early as 1994 (and few knowledgeable teachers to take advantage of it). Are they going to be able to buy all these new monitors? I understand there was an idea that kids would take these home. But it's still only going to work for kids with newer TVs in the family (and probably more than one since mom, dad and siblings are busy watching reality TV crap on the main one). Aren't families like that going to already have real computers?
I guess there is the composite out. I've never seen anything on composite out that looked much better than late 1980s 8-bit games. Is that going to get kids of today excited?
By the way, no, converters are not really a practical option. Yes, there are cheap adapters that are just pin remappings. Yes, many of us have even used those adapters successfully on our computers. No, that's not going to cut it for the Raspberry Pi. The cheap adapters work on our computers because they are just remapping Analog output pins that our computers already have active. The raspberry Pi does not have anything attached to those pins. For the Raspberry Pi you need to spend about $90 for a converter that converts the digital output to Analog VGA. That multiplies the money you are spending by over 4! Another option might be a USB to VGA adapter but those aren't much cheaper and would then require a lot of work to get the drivers going.
Yeah, I did it too. I was there, hitting refresh. They sold out almost immediately, and now whole swaths of folk have to wait to get one just a little bit more.
For that, people are pissed, Eben's a jerk, worst launch ever, etc etc etc.
Guys, they're a non profit. Demand was too great. That's not a BAD thing. Yes, you have to wait. That does not mean that it was the worst launch ever... It means you need to be patient a while longer. Instead of being upset that you didn't get yours, how about taking a step back. You can wait. It won't kill you. This is a good thing. The raspberry pi team did something cool, and that coolness is not diminished just because some of us didn't get one.
Sheesh. Calm Down.
Tony
Where raspberry pi is really failing at the moment is messaging. We were initially told that we could order internationally direct from the foundation. The post on the website says that you can buy them now from RS and Farnell, which would also be fine. While I think this is true for Farnell if you live in the UK, it isn't true for RS or Farnell if you live in the USA, so a lot of people feel like they've been deceived.
Furthermore, Farnell doesn't even seem to sell to USA consumers, and RS only has an "express an interest" site, and nothing on their USA site.
So, consumers are very confused about what is going on. Because of the inconsistent messaging, USA consumers have no idea if we'll ever be able to buy them online, at least without significant retail markup.
What I think would improve the goodwill would be for the Raspberry Pi team to:
1.) Contact RS and Farnell and figure out what the heck is going on, particularly for international customers. Put a post on the website to the effect that you're doing this.
2.) Once they do figure out what's going on, TELL US.
If, in two weeks time, when all the traffic has died down, international customers will be able to get them, that's fine, but people currently don't feel like that's the case. The two distributors are ruining Raspberry Pi's goodwill (which often happens when you give this power to someone else) but Raspberry Pi isn't compensating by over-communicating on their end.
Wrong.
This is the first Pi :)
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
According to information gathered from the Twitter stream, the Raspberry Pi foundation was assured by both RS & Farnell that:
- They have world-wide distribution;
- Individual buyers (not companies) will be able to easily order one;
- Their servers will hold.
The failure is on the part of the big companies, not on the part of the "6 guys who mortaged their houses for founding" not-for-profit foundation.
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
I might as well look at the bright side and let someone else solve all the problems with the first run. Thanks, early adopters!
bah.
I'm in the US and had a heck of a time figuring out a way to order. Pre-order links not working, no results searching for Raspberry Pi on partners' site ...
But in a chat with Newark rep, found that you can just enter part # 83T1943 and it will come up. $20 handling fee if you order online, less if you call the order in.
"83T1943 is the Newark Part # for the Raspberry PI and has an approximate lead time of 30-40 daysyou will get charged shipping if you order online, you should call in 800-463-9275"
You will still probably be charged some shipping - but according the Newark rep less.
Disclosure: Not associated with Newark, other than an occasional customer.
The retailers don't, but the initial shipment was sent directly to the foundations address and they are then being forwarded to RS and Farnell as required.
It's a totally roundabout way of doing it, but think this was due to the timing of everything as well as the foundation wanting to get them into the country as soon as possible.
I was hoping they would hold back a few hundred for sale directly through their own site! but alas! looks like i'm stuck with RS or Farnell for now
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
"I couldn't get one immediately! Well, I guess I won't buy one any more!!!!"
Who cares? Certainly not the non-profit you're slating. Voting with your wallet doesn't work against a non-profit with a massively in-demand item. That's you just sitting in the sad corner by yourself.
You know what the foundation want? They want people with intellegence to get into developing, and to get others into developing. Half the comments I've read in this thread show personalities that need more development than the Raspberry Pi.
Uh, the initial target audience is NOT children (and Children would be buying through different channels in many cases- i.e. Schools would be buying these devices...) and more specifically, they're using Farnell- which is a major international electronics distributor (In the US and Canada, you know them as "Newark"...) and takes a substantive amount of that pain away.
And...
- PayPal being accessible to children is technically against the law.
- PayPal costs the vendor nearly as much as a credit card would.
- It's easier for the person buying, but not for the vendor using PayPal- it's about as obnoxious.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I think the big problem is that they have been VERY open giving us the best information they had at the time.
If they'd kept quiet, it would not have looked so bad.
There's a difference between misinformation and things changing.
You fail at reading the RPi forums:
- 100 empty, unpopulated boards were manufactured. All had a bug. And components had to be hand-soldered.
- The "official" Linux distro - Fedora - is being created by the Fedora guys. So all the delay faults lie with them, not the foundation.
- The foundation is not the one at fault that the UK manufacturers are greedy and lazy
- Yes, sh*t happens
- I am from outside UK, in a 3rd world country and i bought one without issues
- What's the HUB has to do with more RAM on the $25 model ?
They are a 6-person not-for profit foundation - they don't have a hundred-person PR department & co. The launch for the C & D will be smoother :)
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
And I think this is an example of my point.
If I knew that Newark was where to order from Farnell, then I would have known to order from there. Farnell's web site doesn't make this clear anywhere that I could find, and while that is primarily Farnell's problem, it reflects badly on Raspberry Pi, even if it isn't their fault.
The companies do have an interest in informing the Raspberry Pi team in order to reduce load on their own sites, if nothing else. That only works if the Raspberry Pi team goes through the effort of sharing what information they get. Also, the Raspberry Pi team probably has an internal phone contact that the rest of us don't have.
All of this isn't to say that I think Raspberry Pi is a bad organization or that I'm angry or anything. I'm frustrated at not getting one (which I expected) and confused about how to get one in the future (which I did not expect.) I think resolving the confusion would tame at least some of the anger that other people are experiencing.
BTW, are you saying that you don't get charged the $20 handling fee (or get charged something smaller) if you order by phone?
Oh shit, no, you just hit it right on the head -- this is PERFECT for children.
Throw a Qimo port onto the SD card and now you've got a stand-alone school-friendly PC that plugs into any TV. See, I've been trying to get Qimo into my kids' school but the IT folks don't like the idea of booting from USB. (Long story and their perogative.) If, on the other hand, I get a RPi and a little case from the local electronics shop, it's not a "computer" per se, it's a little educational TV box.
Fucking brilliant man, nice.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Unless I'm mistaken all "donors" such as myself received their stickers. At no time did the foundation imply that donors would be first in line or get any special privileges. I suspect only non-donors are raising a stink.
One huge difference though between a typical pre-order from a start-up vs. what these guys are doing is that the actual devices have been manufactured and physically exist at least somewhere on the planet. A typical start-up pre-order is based upon a device that is still "under development" and where the schematics haven't even been sent to a manufacturer, or even that a manufacturing facility hasn't even been decided upon yet.
In other words, this isn't a vaporware pre-order, but something that is merely in pre-order because the distribution chain is merely lagging a little bit until you can get a copy of your own. That is an important distinction.
adding that button would be a simple matter, but i suspect that once it's clicked something would have to happen which would be the hard part.