Supporting Raspberry Pi’s industrial customers
Raspberry Pi computers have always been used in a huge variety of settings, since the combination of low cost, high performance, and ease of use make it an ideal device for almost any application. We’ve seen a large proportion of sales go into the industrial market – businesses using Raspberry Pi, rather than educational settings or individual consumers. Today we’re announcing new support for this group of customers: a dedicated area of our website for industry, and our Raspberry Pi Approved Design Partners programme, connecting businesses that want to integrate Raspberry Pi into their products with hand-picked design partners who can help.
The industrial market for Raspberry Pi has grown over the years, and now represents around 44% of our annual total sales. We’ve seen this borne out with new releases of Raspberry Pi products: typically sales of a consumer product drop off once a new product is released, but we still see incredible sales of older models of Raspberry Pi. Our inference is that these are destined for embedded applications, where changing to the latest model is not practical.
A new online resource for industry
To support Raspberry Pi’s industrial customers, we have developed a new, dedicated area of our website. Our For industry pages are the best place to go for industrial applications of Raspberry Pi. They provide access to the information and support you need when using our products in an industrial setting, with links to datasheets, compliance documents, and more.
As part of our commitment to industrial customers, we guarantee product lifetimes until at least 2026 on all products. We rarely ever end a product line – in fact, you can still buy Raspberry Pi 1 Model B+ from 2014. And we’ve made it easy for you to take a product through the necessary regulatory compliance steps, with the Raspberry Pi Integrator Programme.
Raspberry Pi Approved Design Partners
Along with our online resources for industry, we’re announcing a new programme to help customers who want to integrate Raspberry Pi into their products, and to recognise companies with specialist knowledge and proven expertise in designing with Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi Approved Design Partners programme is a way of connecting trusted design consultancies with customers who need support designing Raspberry Pi computing solutions into their products.
We’re launching with a select set of designers whom we already know and work with, and we hope to grow this group over the coming years. If your company provides hardware, software, or mechanical design services with Raspberry Pi, and you’d like us to promote your offering on our website, you can find out more about applying to become a Raspberry Pi Approved Design Partner.
If you have a product or a piece of work that uses Raspberry Pi, and you need technical assistance, Raspberry Pi Approved Design Partners have the capacity to provide you with effective help. All our Design Partners have been through a rigorous application process, and we will monitor them regularly for quality and ability. You can be confident that Raspberry Pi Approved Design Partners have the backing of Raspberry Pi, and have access to a deep level of technical knowledge and support within Raspberry Pi.
We’re excited to help customers build fantastic products using Raspberry Pi, and we’re looking forward to working with a diverse range of designers across the world.
10 comments
Colin Tinker
Well done you guys. I have at least one of all models you have produced and I am currently using an 8GB Pi4 as my home computer. Keep up the excellent work.
MisterChrYstoff
Can we have some fun Christmas stuff on the blog soon please? We’ve had lots of worthy, serious news recently, but the kids, the kids, please remember the kids. (my two are getting raspi 400s- where are the inspirational, fun new projects for Christmas?), Appreciate all the hard work you do.
Raspberry Pi Staff Ashley Whittaker
Hi ? head over to the Digital Making at Home page: https://www.raspberrypi.org/at-home/
They’ve been doing some fun kids projects while we’ve been busy with product launches and upgrades and the like ?
James Carroll
This is good to see. The fact that older boards are still selling means support for everyone is improved. The more the Pi is successful the better the entire ecosystem around it will thrive as well.
Masafumi Ohta
Congrats to launch, Roger. it is good programme for the industrial customers. I am wondering 44% Pis are for industrial markets..Raspberry Pi is now one of the infrastructure from those Embedded business.
Richard McGlothlin
I have a RPi 4-4 and a RPi 4-8, I would really be excited to see RPi release a SBC based on x86 8 or 16 GB SBC capable of running Win 10 and Linux Mint.
MW
Why ?? Products already exist:
https://www.seeedstudio.com/Rock-Pi-X-Model-B-4GB-p-4277.html
Martin Bonner
Continuing to make the original Raspberry Pi 1 Model B+ from 2014 available is pretty impressive. Presumably there will come a point when either components cease to be available, or it is not financially viable to continue manufacturing in order to sell three a month. Do you have a plan for how you are going to handle both these situations without letting customers down? (Presumably for the “component not available” all you can do is issue a “last time buy” notice when you get one from your suppliers.)
MW
Raspberry Pi (insert model) will remain in production until at least January 2026, so that seems like a cut off point.
Mark Daniels
Excellent work! This is good news. It would be nice if we could actually get our hands on the new compute module and board. I’ve had mine on order since the launch and the delivery date keeps getting pushed back, with little hope of getting anything before spring 2021. I can’t commit to putting this into a product until we have prototyping completed and then can we have confidence that supply will be reliable?