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Raspberri PI Release Announcement

raspberrypi.org

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Re: Raspberri PI Release Announcement

#101

Post by ejenkinsiii »

polshaw wrote: post #94

I can't say I can hold zero blame for the rPi gang on this clusterfuck.. offloading the task was never going to help, it should have been obvious RS/Farnell were not ready- Amazon were the only retailer that could have handled it. But I don't see why they couldn't have handled the orders themselves (Amazon again?). Apparently someone from RS sales has now said they aren't selling any until the end of the week! How in…

Thank you for this clarification, and nicely said would've been nice to get an update a few hours ago stating they weren't taking U.S sales, same thing happen for the eBay auction, forgive me HN just needed to vent

Re: Raspberri PI Release Announcement

#102

Post by bigiain »

scraplab wrote: post #88
bigiain wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems to me this is a _great_ reason to use Kickstarter. You get a solid core of pre-purchase data (complete with credit card billing info ready to rock) which lets you much more accurately gauge demand _before_ you need to finalise manufacture/logistics. I'm in the first batch of the ZPM Espresso machines via Kickstarted, which blew out past their expectations by an order of magnitude, and allowed them the opportuni…

Sadly, Kickstarter isn't an option for most people outside the US, as you need a US bank account to draw the funds into. A limitation with their Amazon payments system I believe.

True, but I'd bet a person-on-the-ground in the US would have been a fair bit less organisation that the deals they did with RS/Farnell. (See NinjaBlocks for an example - they're a bunch of local-to-me-in-Sydney-Australia guys who got a contact/partner in the US to manage their Kickstarter rego for them)

Re: Raspberri PI Release Announcement

#103

Post by noonespecial »

Ecio78 wrote: post #99
polshaw wrote: post #94

I can't say I can hold zero blame for the rPi gang on this clusterfuck.. offloading the task was never going to help, it should have been obvious RS/Farnell were not ready- Amazon were the only retailer that could have handled it. But I don't see why they couldn't have handled the orders themselves (Amazon again?). Apparently someone from RS sales has now said they aren't selling any until the end of the week! How in…

"They’ll be manufacturing and distributing the devices on behalf of the Raspberry Pi Foundation" I dont think Amazon is in the business of manufactoring hardware for others.

Yes, but this was the launch being done with boards that were already built in China. What they really wanted to have happen today was to get the 10,000 units into the hands of their fans as quickly and painlessly as possible, get a polite apology to those who didn't get one, and then hit the PR bell with their big brass "sold them all in 10 minutes" hammer.

"Nobody knows what the hell happened but I didn't get one" is probably not the takeaway they were hoping for on launch day.

Re: Raspberri PI Release Announcement

#104

Post by [deleted] »

Ecio78 wrote: post #99
polshaw wrote: post #94

I can't say I can hold zero blame for the rPi gang on this clusterfuck.. offloading the task was never going to help, it should have been obvious RS/Farnell were not ready- Amazon were the only retailer that could have handled it. But I don't see why they couldn't have handled the orders themselves (Amazon again?). Apparently someone from RS sales has now said they aren't selling any until the end of the week! How in…

"They’ll be manufacturing and distributing the devices on behalf of the Raspberry Pi Foundation" I dont think Amazon is in the business of manufactoring hardware for others.

[deleted]

Re: Raspberri PI Release Announcement

#105

Post by bigiain »

finnw wrote: post #82
bigiain wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I managed to get a confirmation for an order of two through the Australian Element14 site - it took a dozen or so reloads to get the product into the cart, then almost an hour to get through the payment process (I was already registered from previous purchases).

According to the blog at raspberrypi.org (currently offline) they are limiting orders to 1 per customer. So it will be interesting to see if this order goes through.

Yep - will be. I know a bunch of other local (Sydney Australia) people who placed orders for more than one via Farnell (Element14 here in .au), both online and by phone. I suspect if they've billed my credit card they'll honor the order/confirmation whatever the RPi org tells them.

Re: Raspberri PI Release Announcement

#106

Post by Lewisham »

noonespecial wrote: post #103
Ecio78 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"They’ll be manufacturing and distributing the devices on behalf of the Raspberry Pi Foundation" I dont think Amazon is in the business of manufactoring hardware for others.

Yes, but this was the launch being done with boards that were already built in China. What they really wanted to have happen today was to get the 10,000 units into the hands of their fans as quickly and painlessly as possible, get a polite apology to those who didn't get one, and then hit the PR bell with their big brass "sold them all in 10 minutes" hammer. "Nobody knows what the hell happened but I didn't get one"…

Yeah, not getting one is one thing. The probably inevitable emails of "Yeah, you know we charged your credit card and said we'd ship you a Raspberry Pi... well, we're not... please wait 4-8 weeks" are far, far worse.

Re: Raspberri PI Release Announcement

#107

Post by MattJ100 »

polshaw wrote: post #94

I can't say I can hold zero blame for the rPi gang on this clusterfuck.. offloading the task was never going to help, it should have been obvious RS/Farnell were not ready- Amazon were the only retailer that could have handled it. But I don't see why they couldn't have handled the orders themselves (Amazon again?). Apparently someone from RS sales has now said they aren't selling any until the end of the week! How in…

They didn't exactly make you get up at 6AM. To be honest even if everything had gone smoothly, it should still be obvious given the hype that everyone individually had only a small chance of getting one from the first 10K batch.

And I think they were entirely justified to make a small (if you call 10K small) production run ahead of everything else. It's not like they're an established manufacturer and retailer.

It dismays me that people are so quick to criticize others when they haven't been in their shoes and are blessed with hindsight. I understand it's 6AM and you might be a tad more grumpy than usual, but... really. Some of the comments on Twitter make it sound like people were owed one of these.

Re: Raspberri PI Release Announcement

#108

Post by forza »

polshaw wrote: post #94

I can't say I can hold zero blame for the rPi gang on this clusterfuck.. offloading the task was never going to help, it should have been obvious RS/Farnell were not ready- Amazon were the only retailer that could have handled it. But I don't see why they couldn't have handled the orders themselves (Amazon again?). Apparently someone from RS sales has now said they aren't selling any until the end of the week! How in…

This is somewhat embarrassing for them, especially since they so confidently claimed to have everything under control. Kind of makes you wonder if there's any flaws in the device itself. I guess it those will have time to surface before most of us can get one though :)

Handling a launch like this isn't very hard if you don't ignore the problem.

Re: Raspberri PI Release Announcement

#109

Post by forza »

lancefisher wrote: post #38

Fulfillment by Amazon would be awesome for this. Free two-day shipping and the site wouldn't go down. Edit: Seriously, you send them a big box, and they mail out all the little boxes. Check it out: http://www.amazonservices.com/content/fulfillment-by-amazon....

While it would have been a good idea to distribute some of the devices from the US that wasn't the main problem. A common way to do a launch like this is:

1. Make people register with their e-mail adress. 2. Send order links with unique and expiring tokens in batches. 3. Process payments.

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