Thanks RobertCNelson,
It is much clearer for me now. Actually I am not migrating from Amstrong, I just had some experience with it as it was coming by default in the BBB.
I think you have done an amazing job and I feel grateful with you as a BBB user.
Find somebody else to do business with.
Gerald
Please correct me if I am wrong.
At this point everyone involved in the development and manufacturing
of the BeagleBone Black is doing so at break-even or a financial loss.
This is an intentional strategy to build a critical mass of students,
hackers, and hobbyist to create an ecosystem around the development
system.
This is a good long term strategy and a socially responsible position.
Ideally, a healthy ecosystem will continue to grow around the TI based
chip and the Circuit Co based board.
The challenge comes, as we saw with power up and power down, when
others expect a social responsibility project to meet their needs as a
commercial product.
Again, as I understand it, Circuit Co is at their maximum
manufacturing capacity for the BBB. Everywhere I look, the BBB is sold
out with-in hours of a distributor receiving a batch. Many of the
distributors have agree to sell one per customer until the supply
situation is resolved.
Their goal, at this point, is to get as many units as possible into
hands of students, hackers, and hobbyists to build the ecosystem of
hardware and software developers who have a history of adding value
back into an "open" project.
This is new ground for many people and it will take a while for
everyone to understand how the pieces fit together. The good news is
that everything on the BBB is open so anyone is welcome to manufacture
of modify it to meet their needs.
Dave
And people wonder why I do not recommend using these boards in products. More capacity is ramping now and so far it is looking good.
Gerald
How many times has it been said here that the board is not supported for commercial use ? What does this mean ? It means if you use the beagleBone Black( and probably all the others, but I have not looked ) in a commercial product, you’re on your own.
Pretty sure beagleboard.org pages ( among others ? ) say the exact same thing.
I wonder how many time it needs to be said before it sinks in ?
Am I wrong ? Maybe my English skills need polishing . . .
I think it's the multi-unit pricing. It's a low price for everyone, no
matter the quantities. I forget who, it was that ST-Ericsson based
board, they had a low price for developers (single quantities) but for
production people they bumped the price by $50 or something.
Regards,
I wonder if that $50 covered all the headaches they received in return ?
The recent release of the Embest BeagleBone clone has opened the door for more commercial use of the platform. We recently published a blog post about this very topic.