I was able to pick one up on Saturday at MicroCenter. Can’t wait to get started 
Micro center has a few beaglebone black boards
Thanks for the info. Just placed an order through microcenter.com
I placed a backorder on 1/6 from digikey but no shipping info available yet.
Have there been any ‘official announcements’ about the lack of stock yet?
We are shipping boards as you can see form the daily updates on the support Wiki. They go to the distributors. They fill their back orders. No stock shows up because they are going to fill the back orders.
When the distributors have extra boards, they will then show up as having inventory.
Gerald
just fyi, for anyone interested, Special Computing is showing a pretty large stock of BeagleBone Blacks available:
there is nothing to announce… CircuitCo has been shipping consistently since the release. the demand for black grown significantly as well as the fact there are number of companies using black inside commercial productions violating the terms of use for black. with this in mind those companies have been buying blacks up in bulk making it harder for individuals to purchase…
Dave
It doesn't seem that using BBC on a commercial project is an infringement to the term of use. There is only a warning...
It doesn't seem that using BBC on a commercial project is an infringement to the term of use. There is only a warning...
Yes, it is a big warning. Then again, it will take me five minutes to change that to shall we say, a violation of the terms of use. There are avenues available to prevent companies from wiping out inventories as I clearly state.
There are in the terms and conditions for each distributor about selling to people that use them in products. We are reviewing this and may end up removing distributors that violate their terms and conditions.
Gerald
Interesting…
That link points to a $10 markup - a 22% profit margin (assuming they buy for $45 like all of us
There’s also a link to an Amazon-based supplier, charging a $14 markup - a 31% profit margin.
Some markup is reasonable, but these above examples feel like outright greed driven - on the backs of a non-profit org… Feels like these guys are abusing distributor privileges.
I think folks would rather pay those artificial premiums to http://beagleboard.org/ towards supporting software dev ;?) Even a small $10 premium, over say 30,000 future units would fetch enough to hire 2~3 fulltime developers.
Why doesn’t the org setup a paypal acct or some such, and have individuals directly buy from them - maybe charging a reasonable amount for S/H overheads, even using the help of volunteers.
/venkat
The reality is that logistically It's easier and cheaper for at least
most orgs to sell in bulk to a finite number of distributors to allow
each to do what they do best, most economically, and at the highest
efficiency. Beagle.org is in the business of design and production of
small electronic computer boards. Companies like Arrow, RS
Components, Mouser, Digikey, Element14, & Newark while one may
percieve them as being in the electronics business are actually in the
logistics and distrubution business, not electronics and they do an
economic and efficient job of doing just that. the reality is that
with minor adjustments they could probably do the same with next
year's potato crop. Even the Rasberry Pi foundation realizes this and
does not sell one offs directly. The point is it's generally best to
allow each entity to concentrate on what they are best at. That said,
It's probably best for beagleboard.org to concentrate upon excellence
in board design and manufacture and allow the distributors to perform
the logistical duties of distribution at which they excel. It
provides a better, lower cost product that reaches the consumer faster
by dividing things up this way. That's just business.
Eric
.
I just noticed that Digikey has a 100pack part number( BB-BBLK-100-ND ) so wouldn’t that almost by default be in violation of the ‘don’t use it in a product’ clause? Just the fact that they have a PN for a 100 qty order instead of say a 30 pack or 10 pack should raise some eyebrows. No?
Doug
Well, that part has existed for as long as the beaglebone black has
been around.. Still non-stock.. I doubt anyone's ever received an
order on it.
Regards,
I just noticed that Digikey has a 100pack part number( BB-BBLK-100-ND ) so wouldn’t that almost by default be in violation of the ‘don’t use it in a product’ clause? Just the fact that they have a PN for a 100 qty order instead of say a 30 pack or 10 pack should raise some eyebrows. No?
Could be that an overseas distributor buys in bulk for developers in their area. Anyway, given that Digikey and others were caught flat footed with no stock, I’m sure they will bump up their order projections and Circuitco is more than capable of meeting those increased volumes. So calm down, this shouldn’t be an issue going forward.
Doug,
that part number exists only for accounting purposes to receive shipments and to do cross shipment between distributors…
Dave
Thanks Dave, now where the ‘like’/’+’ button.
Doug
Gerald,
I see on http://www.elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBoneBlack#Board_Shipments that there have been 11,375 shipped so far in January.
I have had Qty 1 on back-order from Digikey since Jan 13th. I would have assumed that enough boards must have shipped to Digikey this month to cover back orders, and yet I am still waiting for one board?
Any clues as to what is happening here?
Regards,
Gord Finlay
Well the shortage started early-december, so it's catching up to you..
Regards,