BBC Look East news piece from yesterday
This video was on yesterday’s Look East, and has just appeared on the BBC’s website. It’s only two minutes long – enjoy!
This video was on yesterday’s Look East, and has just appeared on the BBC’s website. It’s only two minutes long – enjoy!
34 comments
Lewis
I can’t wait for mine! 250,000 on waiting list… wow
I wonder what position I am!
tbar
And the 250K units appears to be only for RS. It’s probably roughly the same quantities for element14…
JennyPeters
We have over 100,000 confirmed orders globally. These are orders and not expressions of interest or pre-registrations.
ad
How can I make an order? I found on both farnell and RS register interests forms only. Thank you.
Abishur
Farnell (Element14) takes me straight to a pre-order page when I click on the icon to the right on the home page. Until RS clears it’s back logs it’s handling pre-ordering by having you express interest rather by actually having you buy anything
DeliciousRaspberryCake
The piano analogy was quite good, I haven’t heard it yet :D
JamesH
Excellent article I thought. Short, sweet and straight to the point.
I was talking to Eben only this morning, and I completely forgot to genuflect!
liz
Is that what we’re supposed to do now?
JamesH
Apparently. According to SimonL. *
(Not true, ymmv)
Sparky
Thanks for posting this, Guys. I missed this news clip last night but it gave me chance to show the Missus what I’ve been going on about for the past 6 months.
Brian
great Job! Liz deserves a medal for hey dedication
Edwin
I think Eben will get a Noble Prize for accomplishing what many dream of. The others where bought out and sold out. Eben, a great big pat on the back from this “grand dad” in the USA who is giving one to each of his grand kids. Thank you for all your hard work and not giving up on the young minds of the world. Revolutionary will be the number of projects and lives that will be influenced by your endeavors……….signed an “American Grand Dad”
Jeffrey
whaat :|
250.000 in the waiting list, and “only” 700 sent out yet… Dammn, my patience is going to be put on a test here…
Abishur
Um… it’s not like they’re deliberately holding out on us on the boards. I mean you make it sound like Liz and Eben are hoarding them like dragons, sleeping on them in lieu of a pile of gold. Also it’s actually 2k sent out (all the ones that have had their jack replaced) ~700 by RS (the people in that video) ~700 by Farnell, and the remaining 600 are in the process of being given out by the RPF itself to various QT developers (there was a contest as I remember) and donating them to children (which is really the point of their charity after all ;-))
Jeffrey
Liz and Eben the Dragon hoarders, right… :D
Too bad that pile of gold part is most likely not true :( It’s sure something i wish them to have, for their devotion to this great project :).
Lets hope the production goes well, so that many more can enjoy the Raspberry Pi anytime soon.
Asim Ali
250,000 on the waiting list ? Wow.. I would have never guessed there were that many people interested in this device. It’s truly amazing.
Thanks for all that you’ve done !!
Sean
That’s 250k like us who have jumped in! There are probably (I hope) 10 times that number waiting until production is in full swing. Also, don’t forget the others…. 99% of people I speak to have never heard of a Raspberry Pi. Having said that.. I live on the fens, and we are still wary of the horseless carriage
Jongoleur
There was a fenny conversation in an earlier blog entry…. :-)
Actually, I want through March on a narrowboat – funny place, funny smell and there was definitely tumbleweed blowing down the main street……
Andyl
But March is what passes as civilisation.in parts of the fens.
JamesH
Watch out – I live nr March…..
black.mini
Did you notice the thatched gas lamps?
Andrew
Remind me again where I can buy this for £25 ?
scep
You can’t. Model As are $35 (c. £22) plus taxes and shipping, so around £32 in the UK at the moment. (I guess the BBC thought that an intro saying “A £26.38 computer (not including P&P) which is the size of a credit card” wasn’t quite as snappy ;) )
Jongoleur
Ummm, thats the Model B price!!!
Model As (when they come out) will be £16+£5 delivery + VAT, which will come to £25.20ish A Model B for £32 all in is pretty good value too.
Seeing the demand for Model Bs, I should imagine the Model A won’t go into production until the cased/educational release with support happens.
scep
I know. It was early :)
tadpole
Seriously? 250K? May I vent just a little? If you don’t want to read it, please just skip to the end. I think in any business relationship there needs to be an atmosphere of mutual repsect. The customer should treat the product he orders with care, and not use it outside of the manufacturers recommendations. The customer should have understanding for unforeseen problems that arise, as well as a being able to deal with a normal number of defective products. I also think the supplier should treat teh customer with respect, which I think means giving them aple information so that they can plan accordingly. I understand that you are a NPO, but someone made the decision to allow these boards to be sold to the general public, and I strongly feel that in turn the *normal* rules of doing business then apply. I truely feel like my patience and support for this product has been abused, and I’d like to politely explain why. I have been with this project since the start and have seen so many delivery dates fly by, only to be replaced by new ones. I got up at the crack of dawn to order a product, only to find out that the website from which I was supposed to order from was down. (I wondered then too, why the big 6am announcement if it was going through a distributor anyways), and why the secrecy about the distributor(s)? Knowing that it was being handled by them would have given everyone ample time to open an account etc, instead of trying to do that the morning of. For some of us, the distributors wouldn’t allow us to order, because we were not business owners, which forced us to have to locate a local business through which we could get the part. To this day, I cannot find out from anyone where I am on this long long list of people, so as to just be able to plan a little bit. Today I foudn out that alothough I have an order number and a confirmation from Farnel, niether the Austrian site, nor the UK site can find my order, and both suggest I contact the other to clarify the problem. Frankly, I feel like these two distributors couldn’t care less about me as an end customer, and they phone operators consistantly have chosen to “bad mouth” the foundation for all delays and problems. Today, when asking about just how many boards would be available, and when, I was told, “We don’t know that either because the people at the raspberry pi place don’t tell us anything, so you can only blame them”. Frankly, I don’t *blame* anyone, but I think anyone that cares should know that this is practically the worst *ordering experience* I’ve ever had. Now hearing that there are 250K orders makes me slightly sick. I most likely will be placed at the end of the line when this order mixup gets fixed, as I understand how difficult it is to change a computer que. *sigh*. Is there any way someone could write a *main page* article about where things stand, with semi-official numbers? Something along the lines of how many are ordered in total, how many are made, and a guesstimate of what the production lineup looks like? I can’t tell if my RPi is 1 month ro 1 year away, and after paying for long distance calls to the UK only to be told they can’t help me, I am in need of some perspective on this all.
Thanks. I’m glad I was able to get that out. I do wish you all (even the people at Farnel) a wonderful day.
:)
Jay
JamesH
Not sure why you put a smiley at the end of that post.
Not sure why Farnell and RS are bad mouthing. They are the ones responsible for production, so they know the numbers. Now that the testing is out of the way, it’s all down to them.
Not sure why you think all the numbers you want are actually available at this stage (oer will ever be as its commercial information)
Not sure why you think 250k orders is a bad thing.
tadpole
The smiley face is simply so everyone knows I’m not screaming. I think Farnell is *bad mouthing* because they are being contacted, and it is easiest to give an answer that puts the blame on someone else. Of course this is speculation on my part. What else.. oh.. yes… I would think there would be some feedback regarding the number of orders, or if not that, then the delivery schedule. I find it unusual to pay for a product (yes, I gave all the CC info and all) and then be told they can’t say AT ALL if the device ordered will come in a month, a week, or possibly a year. I even asked specifically; “If there are 250K orders, could I be waiting a year?”, only to hear, “I really can’t say how long it might take sir”. I find that unusal. And lastly, I only find 250K orders *bad* as it makes a backlog that if unable to be met in a reasonable amount of time, will result in frustration on behalf of the end user. If I were a teacher and wanted to use this device in my classroom, I would need some idea as to when it would be deliverable, wouldn’t I? If I ordered now, would it even be here for the winter semester 2013? I hope I explained myself better this time. Thanks!
Jongoleur
The shorter version was a little easier to read, though it would benefit from a few paragraph breaks. Your innitial post was my tl:dr epiphany – my eyes glazed over after the first few words and even moving down to the end didn’t help matters! Anyway…
What Farnell and RS Components have been working with so far is the initial batch commissioned by the Foundation BEFORE they made arrangements with the distributors. The problems with that batch are well documented as is the overwhelming demand. After Farnell/RD demanded certification, there was a further delay. Still with me?
Now the Pi is certified, the boards have gone into serial production (no more batches) and will be delivered directly to the distributors. Given the current backlog, it WILL take a while to produce enough to satisfy demand, but if you ordered now, I’d be surprised if you didn’t get a Pi by the end of June this year.
Sadly, the corporate culture of Farnell/RS and their subsidiaries/affiliates is still geared towards business account customers and their staff aren’t used to dealing with all these pesky end-users, hence the odd replies and the strange behaviour of their ordering systems.
Never mind! You’ll get yours in the end! :-)
tadpole
Thanks for the info. Who are you? lol. And yes, it was a RANT. I have had a coffee, and decided that even if I never get a RPi, my life will still be worthwhile. Thanks for repsonding though. I could tell it was very difficult for the Farnell people to deal with an end consumer, and their system obviously isn’t set up to deal with that; understandably. I’m not sure what serial production means, but it sounds better than batches by the way you put it. I’m hopeful your estimates are correct. Thanks again.
JennyPeters
Tadpole. I work for premier Farnell/element14 and am really sorry to hear of your negative experience. I would be very happy to help you resolve the problem and if you’ll be kind enough to let Liz know your email address I will liase with her and you to get this matter resolved.
We are keen to give accurate delivery updates and so have asked our sales teams to avoid speculation. After the initial batch which were manufactured by the raspberry Pi Foundation we have taken over our own manufacture. This was unfortunately delayed by the compliance testing as we had to make sure the design passed testing before we began volume manufacture. I will ensure our sales teams in UK and Australia are reminded of the facts and hope that we’ll do a better job now of shipping your order. Thanks
Vincent
What ‘educational software’ was shown in the video?
liz
It’s Scratch.
method
That’s great. 250k just to begin with, this probably isn’t even counting the number of people who want 3-4 RasPis (such as myself) for various projects. Let’s just hope they can get them out to the other guys as quick as possible.
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