I'm not saying it may not be a loss leader, but why wouldn't they come
right out and say something like "Price is $9 for kickstarter and
rises to $xx after the campaign."? I've seen that done in several
other cases.
The concept of a race to the bottom is a frequent topic in business
management and development. The Innovators Dilemma
(http://amzn.com/0062060244) covers this occurring to several
industries.
Imo the BBB, RPi, MSP430 and Arduino are themselves just these cases
of "racing to the bottom". The difference is perspective. If you are
the one racing there then you'd probably consider it innovation. If we
take a lesson from history its likely that these lower cost boards
will make higher cost boards raise their capabilities in order to play
in a different market space that is likely to disappear over time.
In any case, they've raised the bar in terms of performance
per-dollar. Isn't that a good thing for the end user?
If it isn't appropriate for your use, such as if you can't buy the
chips (RPi/2 soc), or the driver support is poor (my friend tells me
that Allwinner is notorious for bad drivers for Linux), or the gpu
support is poor (bbb), there are alternatives.
It also looks like they are saying the hardware is fully open source.
From the specs it looks like it is in similar to the BBB in terms of
performance and capabilities.
So you mentioned a less expensive board with a single core processor. Is this the only difference, or do you think there will be other differences too ? Mostly I’m just wondering if that board would have the same amount of ddr, which I’m hoping it will.
Can we also assume since that processor will be single core it would have hald the PRU’s, and DSPs ? Or no ?
Not sure on the single core board. Depends on how my therapy sessions go on recovering from this one.
It would be possible to provide the same amount of memory, but it just 32b one bus instead of two.
DSPs are half.
I believe the PRUs are the same.
PCIe is only one lane instead of two.
Original plan was for a different a PMIC, but I don’t know if I have the guts to go through that again or not.
Yes I can certainly crank out 25 or 30 more versions of the BBB with all sort of combinations. If you drop HDMI you will save $3. Yes, that’s right $3. So we go from $55 to $52.
As long as someone agrees to buy 25,000 of each it would make sense to do. Otherwise, the price goes up because we are building smaller quantities.
Didn’t one user of the community make / build an SoC based on the BBB - Last year ? Something with a DIMM like interface,
and minimal pin-outs. For like ~$35 ?
Anyway I’m having a hard time understanding how one could try and compare a $9 garbage board that has a fraction of the
intrinsic value of the X15. Dual core A15 ( at 1.5Ghz ? ), multi PRUs / DSPs, 2GB ddr, PCIe, and SATA. With a boat load of
other IO.
It’s not that I would / could not find value in a $9 garbage board. It’s that feature wise the two do not even belong in the same solar
system - figuratively speaking. Passed that, I know I am not alone in the world in understanding that while something may be
inexpensive cash wise, you usually end up paying for that mistake through hard work trying to make such a thing work.
So in the context of being bitten once too many times - I guess I am dead. As I’d rather work with something that is “proven” How does
that saying go ? Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it ? Works for me . . .
> Yes I can certainly crank out 25 or 30 more versions of the BBB with all sort of combinations.
Inventing a flawed argument only to knock it down is called a straw man — don’t do it. Nobody suggested cranking out 25 or 30 versions other than yourself, and yes, I agree with you, this suggestion of yours would be non-viable.
All that BBB needs is a single follow-on product around this time, and it’s sure to sell in large numbers if the price drops — that’s how the market works. If the family continues to have a strong following in 2 or 3 years’ time, then and only then evaluate whether there is room for yet another in this successful series. We already know that there’s room for a new member now because so many people have been asking for it.
As long as someone agrees to buy 25,000 of each it would make sense to do.
IoT/M2M is projected to be a multi-billion dollar industry, so why are you thinking in terms of such tiny numbers? You’re already one step ahead in the game by having one of the few high profile products for this area in BBB, an advantage which many companies would die for because you can’t just buy popularity and brand recognition. You have it with Beaglebone. Yet, you want to throw this advantage away by letting it fade through lack of family evolution.
It doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. Perhaps you’re not aware of the great value of what you have.
Yet, you want to throw this advantage away by letting it fade through lack of family evolution.
It doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. Perhaps you’re not aware of the great value of what you have.
Since you’re purporting to know more about the given situation than the person who actually created “the situation” I think a better question would be: Why are you not taking advantage of the situation and making a wishlist of a board yourself ? The hardware is open source with a HUGE open source software backing. Nothing stopping you.
I do not purport to know Gerald at all, but I can say that I do know a couple very good Engineers, who work at about the same level as Gerald. One of which is very smart, smart enough to have worked for Lockheed back around the time I guess Gerald was doing networking “stuff” ( sorry Gerald, peeked at linkdin ). Who looked at the schematics for the beaglebone black, and decided against making a clone. My point here anyway, is that somehow I doubt you know something Gerald doesn’t. Engineers of this caliber aren’t stupid.
Also, monetary gain is not what motivates every_single_person on the planet. Or maybe to a point it does, and at which point some of us do not care if we make more. Some of us care more about other aspects of life. Such as not sitting in front of a computer for hours on end each day. Trying to figure out how to fit the next latest greatest into a peanut shell. Or sitting in a meeting trying to tell some pencil neck why something they think is a good idea won’t work.
So fly, be free, go make a name brand for yourself. That millions in currency is waiting for you . . .
As someone who has actually shipped small items like PCBs for my XBee cape and XBee cape kits internationally, I can tell you that this is not really steep at all. For example, sending 3 PCBs to the UK in a regular envelope cost me $11. Priority mail is $22 and Express Priority mail is close to $50.
