The Biggest Maker of Raspberry Pis Has Been Acquired For $871 Million (theverge.com) 35
An anonymous reader writes from a report via The Verge: The biggest manufacturer of the Raspberry Pi minicomputer, Premier Farnell, has been acquired by Swiss industrial component supplier Daetwyler Holding AG for roughly $871 million. According to Bloomberg, the deal will reportedly help both companies compete better in the components market. "By combining forces, we significantly increase our competitiveness and extend our product range," Daetwyler Chairman Ulrich said in a statement, "facilitating a one-stop shopping experience for our wide range of customers from a multitude of industries." Premier Farnell is one of the only companies with a license to design and distribute Raspberry Pis. The Wall Street Journal says the Raspberry Pi devices are a big part of the company's business, as the division in charge of the Pi raked in 16 percent of the company's total revenue last year.
In other words... (Score:5, Informative)
"By combining forces, we significantly increase our competitiveness and extend our product range," Daetwyler Chairman Ulrich said in a statement, "facilitating a one-stop shopping experience for our wide range of customers from a multitude of industries."
Marketing speak for we've just cornered the market.
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Marketing speak for we've just cornered the market.
Also probably 'market speak' for 'we will jack up the price'.
I hope they don't lose sight of their principles (Score:2, Informative)
Raspberry PI's are one of many neat little ARM devices. They are not the fastest but they are one of the trusted. You can also put ARM FreeBSD on them which I think is fantastic.
ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/arm/armv6/ISO-IMAGES/10.3
There are also armv7 and a new armv8 project around.
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No. You're probably thinking of Arduino.
Re:wut (Score:5, Informative)
"Premier Farnell is one of the only companies with a license to design and distribute Raspberry Pis."
Licensed? I thought the Pi was "open hardware" so anyone could make them. Maybe a license fee for the video render or something, but that shouldn't be restricted.
No, the Pi is manufactured by a few companies under a licensing agreement. It is not open source hardware.
Licensed to use the name (trademark) (Score:5, Informative)
Anyone can make and sell a board based on the rPi design (probably*). You can sell a crappy one made from recycled reject components, with half as much RAM and a slower CPU if you want to. What you can't do is call the crappy version a "Raspberry Pi" and label it with the raspberry logo. You can call it Blueberry Cake if you want to.
To sell a your board as a Raspberry Pi, you need permission, which is granted only to producers who meet the standards.
You're also allowed to use the trademark name "Raspberry Pi" to say your accessory is compatible with the Raspberry Pi board, and certain other defined uses. Otherwise, you need permission to use the name.
* A quick search didn't find an explicit license for the schematic or other copyrightable design documents.
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Try to get Broadcom to sell you that SoC that drives RasPi.
They won't without insane volumes
Copyright for the schematic, NOT the design (Score:1)
Copyright does not protect facts. Which components are used is a set of facts. To the extent that the schematic is protected under copyright, you can't sell the schematic. That doesn't carry over to building a board based on the design.
Consider that the book "Networking for Dummies" is copyright protected, so I can't make and sell copies of the book. I CAN read the book and use that knowledge to make money. Similarly, I can read the rPi schematic and use that knowledge to make money. The gerber files and s
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I am Groot.
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Am I the only one... (Score:3)
That, upon reading "minicomputer", thinks about things shaped (and sized) more or less like a PDP11, and never anything smaller than a microcomputer?
Maybe the Raspberry-like form-factor should be called a "picocomputer"?
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I would love something like that or a Data General NOVA, too bad they're unobtainium.
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I don't regret these times, but rather that skirt lengths hasn't followed the same trend...
Misleading Title (Score:5, Informative)
Those in the electronics industry, esp EU, Australia, know Farnell (also Newark and Element 14) as a tier 1 supplier to engineers of electrical and electronic parts.
Their catalogue is thicker than your fist, and RPI's make up a couple of pages.
Thus the big story is not about RPIs, but that one of the largest electronic component suppliers has been acquired by a Swiss company.
We would place an order every other day with these guys, but the competition is fierce from Digikey, who would now be the worlds No1 general component supplier, with Mouser and Farnell running second.
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I have an old Farnell paper catalog somewhere and it dwarfed the contemporary Digi-Key, Mouser, and Newark catalogs although about the same size as the Allied catalog. I was always a little envious of people in the EU who could buy from them because they carried parts which I could have used that were available in the US only with great difficulty.
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Yeah, when I read the title, I was also thinking that for Farnell, the Raspberry Pi was just one item among thousands for sale.
But then I went on and read TFS, which says that "the Pi raked in 16 percent of the company's total revenue last year". So their catalogue may be thicker than your fist, but the RPI still accounts for 1/6 of their business. I doubt any other product in their catalogue comes close.
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Ah, Farnell / Element 14... (Score:2)
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I wanted to buy some connectors from them. "NO MINIMUM ORDER" it said, on or near the front of the catalog. ...goes to the item page... "MINIMUM ORDER 10" or something like that. End of attempting to order. I went to eBay and bought exactly what I wanted, in the quantity I wanted.
and probably dramatically cheaper in no small part due to shipping costs. their shipping charges are literally insane. There is just no way to justify them. They are padding their shipping considerably, or they are getting absolutely raped by their shippers, either because they are assholes to work with or because they are crap negotiators.
Obligatory (Score:3)
Daetwyler Holding AG has the biggest piece of the Pi now.
is one of the only / Maker of Raspberry Pis (Score:2)
Who writes this drivel? ....
1 either you are the only one, or you are one of many, you cant be one of the only
2 Farnell is a leading electronic component distributor, rivalling Element14 and Mouser, not some two bit Pee manufacturer.
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2 Farnell is a leading electronic component distributor, rivalling Element14
Element14 is Farnell.
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