We anticipate the device will be available to the general public later in 2011 – we were hoping to hit the end of November, but right now December’s looking more likely.
I really, really hope I am wrong, but the first few batches will be woefully short of the actual demand.
Why?
No pre-orders to indicate real demand (Rasperry forums are more optimistic than an Amway convention).
No clue on what financing they have in place to handle the manufacturing.
I have a hard time believing they will do a run of 10000(need to find someone to front $200k+) boards, when the real demand is probably 100k+(at those $25/$35 price points).
What will happen they will have 1000 boards for sale early January and they will be gone in an instant (remember no pre-orders, means people will overwhelm their servers in a huge rush). Then we will wait another 2-3 months for a slightly bigger batch. Repeat until 2013.
Again, I hope I am wrong and hopefully someone at Broadcom who has experience with supply-chain is backing them.
While demand might be very high, the particular scenario you describe is not going to happen. Eben addresses the funding issue in this interview: http://www.raspberrypi.org/?p=281 The trustees will be putting up the money for the initial run themselves. One of the trustees is Pete Lomas, managing director of Norcott Technologies.
Comments
The big FAQ, for your convenience:
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When will the device be available to purchase?
We anticipate the device will be available to the general public later in 2011 – we were hoping to hit the end of November, but right now December’s looking more likely.
Also, they hope to be selling the model A for $25 and the Model B for $35.
I really, really hope I am wrong, but the first few batches will be woefully short of the actual demand.
Why?
No pre-orders to indicate real demand (Rasperry forums are more optimistic than an Amway convention).
No clue on what financing they have in place to handle the manufacturing.
I have a hard time believing they will do a run of 10000(need to find someone to front $200k+) boards, when the real demand is probably 100k+(at those $25/$35 price points).
What will happen they will have 1000 boards for sale early January and they will be gone in an instant (remember no pre-orders, means people will overwhelm their servers in a huge rush). Then we will wait another 2-3 months for a slightly bigger batch. Repeat until 2013.
Again, I hope I am wrong and hopefully someone at Broadcom who has experience with supply-chain is backing them.
While demand might be very high, the particular scenario you describe is not going to happen. Eben addresses the funding issue in this interview: http://www.raspberrypi.org/?p=281 The trustees will be putting up the money for the initial run themselves. One of the trustees is Pete Lomas, managing director of Norcott Technologies.
I want to give at least one of these as a Christmas gift. Let's hope they get them selling soon.