Strange Prices

I expect BBB pricing to remain "strange" and disparate across the world, because Premier Farnell isn't a BBB manufacturer as it is for Raspberry Pi, and so different forces are in play.  There is also an inevitable conflict of interest to some degree, since every BBB sold probably means one less sale of Pi Model B.  We'll never know how that's being played, as it's an internal business matter.  They've already raised the price once, as BBB was initially listed at £27.<something> in the UK and now it's listed at £30.99.

As you point out though, their price leeway is limited.  If BBB is priced too high, people will just go elsewhere.

The same applies to stock issues as it does to price issues.  At least in the UK, Farnell is ordering relatively few BBBs each week and there are never any in stock, so customers may be going elsewhere.  Currently their stock info says:

Availability:  Awaiting Delivery

 

1000 will be available for delivery on 27 May, 2013

5000 will be available for delivery on 2 Jun, 2013

1500 will be available for delivery on 3 Jun, 2013

I suspect that CircuitCo doesn't allow them any greater numbers so it's not Farnell's fault, but that's no comfort to eager customers.  Those who have succumbed to the BBB feeding frenzy will go elsewhere.

> because Premier Farnell isn't a BBB manufacturer as it is for Raspberry Pi

Do we really know what this difference amounts to?

Premier Farnell doesn't actually manufacture either device.

Sony manufactures the RPi, and Circuitco manufactures the BBB.

I think RS Components is directly involved in testing returned RPis,

but I don't think Farnell even does that.

Farnell may be involved to some extent in supplying components.

We have heard for example that RS didn't order enough Broadcom cpu's

early on.  But we have also heard that the RPF got stuck owning

inventories of memory chips.  So it isn't exactly clear to what extent

Farnell is involved in component inventories for RPi compared to BBB.

The NZ rep made a comment about why, but I can't recall his exact words.

It is a shame they have the blanket three weeks, as I'm sure most people will just go elsewhere, not knowing its next day.

The interesting thing is they now (NZ) have the new code in the search, and this hoop jumping didn't affect the A version.

re the Embest

I didn't see (or note) that, so thanks.

I'm not sure how they use it, because I got this back from the NZ rep, when I posted to Pat Kelly in April 2013.

I believe there is some merit in partnering with someone who has the facility to manufacture, carry and then supply, in much the same way as E14 and RaspberryPi.

We don’t have facilities for manufacturing, the Raspberry Pi is a unique situation where contract manufacturers were employed due to the high manufacture volume. There are low volume contract manufacturers in Christchurch I can put you in touch with if you like.

Mark

I'm not actually surprised e14 don't have their own facilities, very few places do these days. It's simply not worth it unless you want to get into the contract manufacturing business yourself - or are big enough to keep the place running to capacity with your own products.

I worked in the contract manufacturing business for many years, and the production lines were kept going 24x7 as the necessary equipment is very expensive to let sit idle.

Having moved on to a major brand-name manufacturer, you now find that even they have outsourced virtually all of it to contract manufacturers as well.

reviving an older thread, I came across this:

Embest: BB Black Development Platform based on TI Sitara AM3358 Processor Exclusively for China

http://www.element14.com/community/docs/DOC-54131?CMP=PRR-APC-13-0013

so it looks like E14 is in fact making BBB, as discussed hypothetically above,

just not in the Sony factory (yet?).

The RPi has a similar China-exclusive manufacturer, Egoman.

Embest is owned by E14, as of 5 July 2012, as selsinork noted above.

They were founded in 2000 and have made ARM boards, among other things.

I suppose it's possible that Embest, which is based in Shenzhen, where the

original RPi factory was located, is actually the original RPi factory.

Now they make E14's Embedded Pi product as well as PiFace, and the TI Sabre Lite.

That's very interesting... How do you find the time to dig this sort of stuff up ?

I was never clear on whether embest is just a designer, or if they have their own manufacturing facility. Not that it probably matters, they'll have a good choice of manufacturing partners given their location.

As for building them in the Sony UK factory, I'm not sure that makes a lot of sense. The circuitco page shows they've shipped just over 60000 as of today, so while it's selling well enough it's not on an RPi scale.

We're obviously not going to find out what percentage of that e14 have distributed, but given the list of distributors isn't limited to e14 & RS you'd not expect it to be huge.

I see that 'Embest Version' has appeared at the bottom of the list of distributors on beagleboard.org now as well..

There's a different, possibly more interesting, path here. e14 could use embest to produce a lower cost version for bulk users who want to integrate it into some larger product, or the sort of usage that is discouraged for the official beagleboard version. Doing that may only make sense if the manufacture stays in china.

How do you find the time to dig this sort of stuff up ?

he he.  Large well-paid research staff.

The parallels between RPi and BB are becoming more clear.

This is what I understand to be the case (corrections welcome)

An SoC maker (Broadcom, TI) designs the board and/or prototypes,

and supports the founding of a non-profit (RPF, beagleboard.org) for

largely promotional activities, with the key founders and/or other engineers

retaining their employment at the SoC vendor (Upton,Kridner+Coley),

with manufacturing contracted out (Sony, CircuitCo) and China exclusive

manufacturing (Egoman, Embest), and distribution through E14,RS, and

others in the case of BB.  I think both non-profits were started in 2008,

and both board designs (RPi, BBW) were started in mid 2011.

selsinork wrote:

 

http://www.element14.com/community/docs/DOC-48555/l/premier-farnell-acquires-shenzhen-embest-technology-co-ltd-enhancing-its-offering-for-electronic-designers

Branding and company structure don't always track each other, which can make things a bit confusing.

According to their official line, the group's name is Premier Farnell, which is consistent with the above press release saying that Embest was acquired by Premier Farnell, not by E14.  Premier Farnell's Wikipedia page (which was updated just a couple of days ago, apparently by Farnell staff) says:

The Premier Farnell group trades globally under the following company names:

• Farnell in the UK and Europe
• element14 in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, China and Singapore
• Newark Electronics in the US, Canada and Mexico
• MCM Electronics in the US
• Farnell-Newark in Brazil
• Combined Precision Components (CPC) in the UK
• Akron Brass, North America
• TPC Wire and Cable, North America

so although Embest is still missing from that list, the acquisition is nevertheless consistent with Premier Farnell being the actual global corporation behind all of this, they make the acquisitions.  It's consistent with PF's claims on their corporate Our Businesses page and Our Brands page as well.  Likewise, in their banner line, Embest describe themselves as "a Premier Farnell Company".

It all seems fairly straightforward in terms of corporate relationships between the parts.

Premier Farnell owns Embest but they don't own the Sony factory in Wales, so if there is to be a direct correspondance between Premier Farnell's manufacturing of Pi and BBB, the assembly line for Chinese BBBs would have to be contracted out to local manufacturers in China, not built by Embest themselves.  Since PF trades in China as Element 14 (and probably as Embest as well now), Chinese-manufactured BBBs are likely to appear in that market under the Element 14 (or Embest?) brand, but not in US nor Europe because the group trades under different company names over here.

If Premier Farnell were to  import Chinese-manufactured BBBs over here, then branding would get complicated, but that may be disallowed by CircuitCo.

Morgaine Dinova wrote:

 

Premier Farnell owns Embest but they don't own the Sony factory in Wales, so if there is to be a direct correspondance between Premier Farnell's manufacturing of Pi and BBB, the assembly line for Chinese BBBs would have to be contracted out to local manufacturers in China.

Absolutely. I'm sure the use of the Sony factory is more a political decision driven by the RPF's stated goal of wanting to build them in the UK. From a puerly business perspective you'd build them wherever is cheapest in order to improve your profits. 

The obvious other example we have is Sabre-Lite, by embest, built in china. Likely lower volumes than BBB in much the same way as BBB is lower than RPi. I'm sure they could arrange to get either SL or BBB built by Sony in the UK, but where's the advantage in it ?

selsinork wrote:

 

From a puerly business perspective you'd build them wherever is cheapest in order to improve your profits. 

I've often wondered though whether a fully automated assembly line costs any more to operate in one place or another.  Above a certain volume of robotic production, the few humans that are still required no longer have a strong impact on costs.  Assembling in the place of your target market clearly reduces transport costs, might attract local inducement benefits, and may avoid some import duty as well.

Premier Farnell owns Embest but they don't own the Sony factory in Wales, so if there is to be a direct correspondance between Premier Farnell's manufacturing of Pi and BBB,

If this is in reference to my summary of the correspondence between RPi & BBB,

then yes you're right the correspondence maybe isn't quite that perfect. 

But you are assuming that PF contracts with the Sony factory for RPi, which may or

not be true.  Certainly Andy won't confirm that.  PF signed a new contract with

RPF in Jan 2013, and for all we know PF may no longer be a RPi "manufacturing" partner.

In fact, I suspect that's what happened. 

I agree  once it's all done by robots you would expect the costs to equalise. i suspect thatthings such as the fact that UK taxes chips much higher than finished boards and also the cost of land etc make it  still more expensive  in the UK

i really can't see how UK GOV got away with this taxation BS saying it protected UK Jobs ...err how does pricing manufacturing in the UK out of the market for over 20 years help jobs in the UK ..DOH!!

I agree  once it's all done by robots you would expect the costs to equalise. i suspect thatthings such as the fact that UK taxes chips much higher than finished boards and also the cost of land etc make it  still more expensive  in the UK

i really can't see how UK GOV got away with this taxation BS saying it protected UK Jobs ...err how does pricing manufacturing in the UK out of the market for over 20 years help jobs in the UK ..DOH!!