Raspberry Pi Stock

Elementary said: "After a few million have been sold and they are still in demand we'll see the ipad/ iphone lookalike scenario; everyone jumping on the bandwagon."

Dude, what you described already exist, they are called Android Tablets and Smartphones. LOL

The Raspberry Pi, in fact, is basically nearly simply the guts of an Android Tablet.

Privacy problems, especially with EU/UK law on such things?

They'd have had to email everyone asking permission I would think, and with laws on privacy varying in different jurisdictions (even in the EU) that would have been a headache.

I have been following but I don't recall reading about geeks and nerds being the primary target for sales... But then I have focussed on reading the blurb about schools and education which, as I said, was the reason behind the development. Being something of a geek myself, I do understand the desire to get my hands on a new "toy" and then talk enthusiastically about what we've done with it, but there's a shortage of young programmers out there and we desperately need to get them started on the road to employment in engineering and technology. After all, the future of these industries is, in my opinion more important than our hobbies. Having said that, I do take your point about enthusiasts using the the first run of Pis to develop the technology. It may have been a good idea to reserve some so  that teachers of technology could have experimented a little before buying them for the classroom. Of course I have a significant bias in this area but then the future of industry is important.

These are just my thoughts and opinions. Feel free to disagree or agree - contructive discussion is good .

The Pi site and forum is up again so you can go and have a look. As initial stocks are limited the need was for the developer/hobbyist/enthusiast/educational community to get their hands on the Pi rather than the intended end user, the pupil. For months they have been trying to get the media interested and been trying to drum up interest. The genie is, however, now out of the bag, and in recent weeks they have been firefighting just to keep their heads above water. From a small project aimed at British schools, there is now interest from all over the world, which is great, but will inevitably make supply an issue in the short term.

Agreed, I don't think it took the powers of psychic Sally to see that this was going to be big. By their own admission, the mailing list had 100,00 subscribers, many of which it would appear weren't mailed anyway, because it takes a week to personalise that number of mails (Really?). I have been following the foundation for several months now and on several occasions, naysayers about their model were assured that 'they were not business noobs'. I don't think this launch and the stock problems can be taken as an unqualified success, so perhaps the naysayers were not entirely wrong.

I for one will be happy just to get a hold of such a fledgling geek product when it arrives.

Yes I was wondering why I got no email but as has been pointed out here I really don't think the engineers concerned were prepared for this unprecedented level of interest from day 1 of launch of a product which doesn;t even have a case available for it yet!

Great work RPi foundation keep it up, I expect many earlier "buzz" catchers will find that there will be a considerable amount of work required to get this device to do much.

The reason embedded systems boards cost so much is due to the low numerical demand for product - these are specialised products not normally sold as commodities.

In relation to Windows on RPi it may indeed be possible to get Windows CE running on it as the ARM platform is supported and perhaps ReactOS (Windows NT clone) may also be recompiled for ARM but full Microsoft Windows does not support this CPU platform.

I think a fair assessment is that "Raspberry Pi Foundation don't do email".  They accepted registrations to their mailing list, but the vast vast vast majority of subscribers have never got a single email back.  There have been lots of complaints about that on the blog.

It's pretty odd because email is such a lightweight service, much lighter than their blog and forum.  It would have stood up well to the rigors of launch day.  A single Linux box can easily handle mailing lists of hundreds of thousands of subscribers and a high volume of postings.

Maybe their Internet sysadmin simply doesn't like email.  Some people really think that Web == Internet and that there's nothing else worthwhile, particularly if they're relatively new.

O.K.....Allow the free market to dictate the price of the Rasb Pi....If the foundation puts all profits back into production, reasonably priced Pi's will soon be available. Just think people!  The foundation is using Obamanomics in their production philosophy! Gues what? It doesn't work!!!!! All the good intentions in the world fail if you ignore Econ101.

I just ordered mine! I got the email inviting me to order from Newark. I paid for it, and now I'm waiting excitedly. However, it's still too early to celebrate. About three months ago I registered interest in the Pi with the foundation, and I did get the Email telling me they were available, but I read it too late to get into the initial action. Then I registered interest with Newark about three days ago,  and Bingo! Still no ETA, tho.

Bob I have to agree.

RS Australia had not even heard of the Rasberry Pi and though I was being smart. When I assuered the Sales person I was genuine there refered me to the tech support line. When I finally got through (After being dropped off 8 times, once I reached you are "1st in the queue") the tech support engineer told be RS had no record of any such device. Element13 Australis's Web page was shredded but I managed to click on the online chat icon and get a very helpful gent whi both knew about the "PI", gave men a prioce and told be to call if I could not get the order page up. (Did so and am on the wating list) I dont know what all the fuss is about, whenever our Airlines or radio stations over here have specials or compections Wen servers crap abnd telephone exchanges die !