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Raspberri PI Release Announcement

raspberrypi.org

141–150 of 273 posts

Re: Raspberri PI Release Announcement

#141
post #121

What a tremendous failure. Why check with your distributors before going live? It's not even the traffic; RS never sold any and for the rare moment that you could get to Farnell, they were already (or always have been) out of stock from minute one.

Who is this a tremendous failure for? RaspberryPI, or Farnell and RS?

I think this is a great success for RPi. Demand exceeded expectations. They always said the first batch would be 10,000 in size, and that's been eaten up in minutes (or probably seconds).

I would rather they had a small initial run first, that didn't take so long to get to market, and allowed them to test the waters tentatively. The alternative would have been to take a much larger risk, longer lead time, and bigger upfront cost to make a bigger batch.

We're always advocating that companies should ship small and early and then iterate to refine their product. This is a MVP from them. If I was involved I would be extremely proud and overjoyed at this.

all the complainers should take a step back and relax. What's the worst that has happened because you couldn't get you hands on this just yet? It's not as though you have lost money, missed deadlines, or anything else. Just give the consumerism a rest for a while.

As for RS Components' and Farnell's reputation as businesses...

PS. I did get up at 6am to try and order a board, but wasn't too disappointed when I couldn't get on the RS website. I can wait another month or so.

Re: Raspberri PI Release Announcement

#142
post #129

Maybe I'm clueless, but why would you order one if you already have a PC?

Why would you get a smartphone if you already have a PC?

Why would you get an iPad if you already have a PC?

Why would you get a games console if you already have a PC?

Why would you get a media centre if you already have a PC?

Why would you get a second PC if you already have a PC?

Re: Raspberri PI Release Announcement

#143

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....

But amazon doesnt make stuff like RS and Farnells do

Re: Raspberri PI Release Announcement

#144
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Setting up a US bank account for a non-US resident isn't all that hard. Worst case for most major US banks is that you might need to get a notarized copy of your passport and the application form, which can cost you a bit (first time I did it, years ago, the local US consulate charged me $65 for it).

Have you tried this recently? It's practically impossible, thanks to money-laundering paranoia. The closest I got was Western Union, but they said the account couldn't be used for any kind of internet commerce.

I'd love to be proved wrong on this.

Re: Raspberri PI Release Announcement

#145

Gosh - this person on ebay ships in 5-6 days and has already sold 28. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290... /Ya think?

Raspberry Pi are recommending that people don't buy them from e-bay.

https://twitter.com/#!/Raspberry_Pi/status/17478985350081331...

Re: Raspberri PI Release Announcement

#146
post #123
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon has sites all over the world, including the UK, for which it also offers fulfillment services. I suspect the larger reason this hasn't been done yet is that it allows them to first take the orders and then scale the production run size to that.

All over the world? They've got sites in 9 countries.

For most people in the US, that it is all over the world!

Re: Raspberri PI Release Announcement

#147
post #129

Maybe I'm clueless, but why would you order one if you already have a PC?

It's a credit card sized computer that can run Linux, has got graphics+display out, and a few programmable I/O pins. If you're a hacker and let your imagination run wild, only the sky is the limit what this baby can do :) This could probably power lots of interesting household hacks or hobby projects.

Re: Raspberri PI Release Announcement

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

True, but why bother? US is only 10% of Internet users and 2x smaller than EU.

Re: Raspberri PI Release Announcement

#149

The one thing you can say about incompetence is that its ignorant of its own condition. This does not bode well to the quality of the product itself, the lack of basic skills and forethought is frightening. After all that "we know what we are doing" talk I guess we can now point and laugh.

Yeesh, relax. Have you been injured by this? When they say they know what they're doing that's written from their perspective. It's not a declaration that they're going to live up to the expectations of every manchild who feels entitled to one of these devices.

Re: Raspberri PI Release Announcement

#150
post #121

What a tremendous failure. Why check with your distributors before going live? It's not even the traffic; RS never sold any and for the rare moment that you could get to Farnell, they were already (or always have been) out of stock from minute one.

Who is this a tremendous failure for? RaspberryPI, or Farnell and RS?

The distributors tbh.

I'd imagine traffic to their website on a normal day is relatively low. Even though they're worldwide companies, their market is pretty niche.

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