4 ms·

I still can't make sense of his decision to favour SME customers. Someone who needs 3000 units a year is more likely to have the resources to redesign around a

by pyb 3y ago

I still can't make sense of his decision to favour SME customers. Someone who needs 3000 units a year is more likely to have the resources to redesign around a different SBC, than someone who orders a couple RPis a year.

sjg 3y ago
He touches on it here in this interview with Jeff G - https://youtu.be/-_aL9V0JsQQ?t=564 https://youtu.be/-_aL9V0JsQQ?t=564
- adamors 3y ago
  The article is about this video interview, it even links to it
detaro 3y ago
Someone who orders only a couple a year is probably not loosing a lot of money from not being able to or having a harder time getting them. Even if it's commercial, 5/y is probably more in the realm of a few individually customized setups. Whereas if you have a complete product designed around an SBC, respinning that is expensive, and a few hundred to a few thousand units is an ugly point where that leads to really high per-unit costs. Whereas if you make millions of a thing, the overall development cost is similar, but spreads over many more units. (EDIT: you also probably aren't using an SBC, for similar-ish reasons: a customized board is saving you money per-unit, and millions is enough to amortize the up-front cost of that and still come out ahead) So the economic perspective IMHO makes a lot of sense.
- pipo234 3y ago
  So his rationale is: 3000/y is big enough to have a real business around, yet too small to invest in alternative SBC?
  - pyb 3y ago
    People get into incredible mental contorsions to justify helping one customer who should really be able to find alternatives, over helping 1000+ customers who cannot.
  - detaro 3y ago
    Pretty much. Much larger products are also more likely to not use an SBC in the first place, so naturally the majority of the products needing Pis urgently are in that smaller range. Of course you also have large companies making low-volume products using Pis, where I guess one could argue more that those companies should be able to take the hit of temporarily not being able to make as many as they'd like. But for smaller companies without large buffers or other business, its a big problem. I'd be curious to what degree they've looked into the exact cases when deciding who to support.
  - dbuder 3y ago
    3000y is far too little to do the dev work to bring the software up to par imo the failure to ramp up production is the unforgivable part
KaiserPro 3y ago
> Someone who needs 3000 units a year is more likely to have the resources to redesign around a different SBC So, you're a 5 person company that makes a widget for some specialised industry. over the last 4 years you've spent 30% of your turnover building an enclosure, getting the moulds made, and have orders for 3k devices. They need to be delivered inside 3 months. A new enclosure mould will cost 5 months turnover to produce, and god knows how many man months to prototype. The software, sensor package and PCB will need to be re-designed, certified and tested from scratch. bankruptcy.
mft_ 3y ago
Maybe a cynical take, but if a customer redesigns a product around a competing SBC due to Pi supply issues, that customer is likely lost forever - for rational and emotional reasons. So there's maybe some protection of the Pi reputation and business with SME customers thrown in there?
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  > but if a customer redesigns a product around a competing SBC due to Pi supply issues, that customer is likely lost forever - for rational and emotional reasons. I'm inclined to say that that's true, and even that it might make sense in terms of money for the RPi folks to prioritize businesses for that reason, but it's worth remembering that it cuts both ways: Individuals also remember which vendor screwed them over.
  - mft_ 3y ago
    Totally agree. However, I suspect that individuals are more likely to tolerate delays in hardware acquisition, and also more likely to stick with an RPi due to the ecosystem offering vastly greater levels of support and existing solutions. (When I struggled to lay my hands on a Pi Zero a while back, I looked for other options, but found various negatives for the potential alternatives.)

by pyb 3y ago

sjg 3y ago

He touches on it here in this interview with Jeff G - https://youtu.be/-_aL9V0JsQQ?t=564 https://youtu.be/-_aL9V0JsQQ?t=564

adamors 3y ago
The article is about this video interview, it even links to it

detaro 3y ago

Someone who orders only a couple a year is probably not loosing a lot of money from not being able to or having a harder time getting them. Even if it's commercial, 5/y is probably more in the realm of a few individually customized setups. Whereas if you have a complete product designed around an SBC, respinning that is expensive, and a few hundred to a few thousand units is an ugly point where that leads to really high per-unit costs. Whereas if you make millions of a thing, the overall development cost is similar, but spreads over many more units. (EDIT: you also probably aren't using an SBC, for similar-ish reasons: a customized board is saving you money per-unit, and millions is enough to amortize the up-front cost of that and still come out ahead) So the economic perspective IMHO makes a lot of sense.

pipo234 3y ago
So his rationale is: 3000/y is big enough to have a real business around, yet too small to invest in alternative SBC?
- pyb 3y ago
  People get into incredible mental contorsions to justify helping one customer who should really be able to find alternatives, over helping 1000+ customers who cannot.
- detaro 3y ago
  Pretty much. Much larger products are also more likely to not use an SBC in the first place, so naturally the majority of the products needing Pis urgently are in that smaller range. Of course you also have large companies making low-volume products using Pis, where I guess one could argue more that those companies should be able to take the hit of temporarily not being able to make as many as they'd like. But for smaller companies without large buffers or other business, its a big problem. I'd be curious to what degree they've looked into the exact cases when deciding who to support.
- dbuder 3y ago
  3000y is far too little to do the dev work to bring the software up to par imo the failure to ramp up production is the unforgivable part

KaiserPro 3y ago

> Someone who needs 3000 units a year is more likely to have the resources to redesign around a different SBC So, you're a 5 person company that makes a widget for some specialised industry. over the last 4 years you've spent 30% of your turnover building an enclosure, getting the moulds made, and have orders for 3k devices. They need to be delivered inside 3 months. A new enclosure mould will cost 5 months turnover to produce, and god knows how many man months to prototype. The software, sensor package and PCB will need to be re-designed, certified and tested from scratch. bankruptcy.

mft_ 3y ago

Maybe a cynical take, but if a customer redesigns a product around a competing SBC due to Pi supply issues, that customer is likely lost forever - for rational and emotional reasons. So there's maybe some protection of the Pi reputation and business with SME customers thrown in there?

yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
> but if a customer redesigns a product around a competing SBC due to Pi supply issues, that customer is likely lost forever - for rational and emotional reasons. I'm inclined to say that that's true, and even that it might make sense in terms of money for the RPi folks to prioritize businesses for that reason, but it's worth remembering that it cuts both ways: Individuals also remember which vendor screwed them over.
- mft_ 3y ago
  Totally agree. However, I suspect that individuals are more likely to tolerate delays in hardware acquisition, and also more likely to stick with an RPi due to the ecosystem offering vastly greater levels of support and existing solutions. (When I struggled to lay my hands on a Pi Zero a while back, I looked for other options, but found various negatives for the potential alternatives.)