Official, Customized Raspberry Pi Versions Coming Soon (linuxgizmos.com)

DeviceGuru writes: The immensely popular Raspberry Pi will soon be offered in customized versions, through an exclusive arrangement between Raspberry Pi Trading and Element14. According to the companies' announcement, Element14 will provide design and manufacturing services to OEM customers to create 'bespoke designs' based upon the Raspberry Pi technology platform. That's weird U.K. English for saying that contracts for creating customized Raspberry Pi SBCs will entail substantial NRE fees and 3,000 to 5,000 unit orders, depending on the nature of the customization. The tweaked Pi's are likely to have revised board layouts, additional or alternative functions, interfaces, connectors, and memory configurations, and more. A handful of unsanctioned Raspberry Pi knock-offs have already appeared over the past couple of years, including various Orange Pi and Banana Pi flavors, which certainly didn't involve any 'bespeaking.' More info is at Element14's CustomPi page.

Comments

"English, motherf..., do you speak it?"

[JaredOfEuropa]

Bespoke is not "weird UK English". It's common English and used in the USA as well, I've heard and seen American colleagues use it regularly.

Re:GPUs are a problem for ARM

[MightyYar]

The cheapest NUC I can find on Amazon is around $139. The cheapest Pi I can find is $19.99 for an A, $32 for a B, and $39 for a Pi 2. At 3-7 times the cost, I don't think they are exactly competitors across the board. There is surely overlap, but that doesn't mean they will "eat the lunch" of the Pi in a space in which it does not have an offering.