when is next batch due?

It looks like Newark has updated their availability dates.

The link in the OP now says:

   "1 Expected to ship 17 Jul, 2012

     Further stock expected to ship 7 Sep, 2012"

yet another strange update at Newark today:  17 Jul changed back to Aug 16.  

   "1 Expected to ship 16 Aug, 2012    

   Further stock expected to ship 8 Sep, 2012"

It'll be such a relief when the boards are finally available in sufficient quantity to be ex-stock.

All these annoyances about partial information will vanish instantly, users will totally lose interest in production rates and batch sizes, all three parties will have the freedom to organize production without needing to update the masses, techies will be able to concentrate on technology, educators on education, and bean counters on making money.  Everything will be brilliant.  But until then, this very depressing situation will remain.

It is safe to assume that RS and Farnell are working towards having Pi boards IN STOCK, right?  I can't imagine why not, but perhaps it should be asked.

And assuming the answer is "Yes", a guess at the quarter by which it might happen would be nice, so that we can plan ahead our multiple Pi projects and where applicable, our multi-Pi projects.

Morgaine.

Jenny Peters has said "once volume production starts, we expect lead times to come in". http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/30/03/2012/53326/success-delays-raspberry-pi-as-ce-marking-becomes-essential.htm

But that leaves open the question of whether it is reasonable to expect the waiting list to be

professionally managed in the mean time.   By that I mean at a minimum that the schedule

for the next batch given by Jenny on the RPi forum, and by the admins in the element14 FAQ

is consistent with the schedule given on the ordering website at newark.com, and that the

admins on the element14 forum are available to explain any significant discrepancies.

I have no doubt that Element 14 dislikes those inconsistencies as much as everyone else.  They're probably trying to eliminate them, although that work doesn't seem to be progressing very fast.

What I'd really like to see is time curves of boards manufactured vs. boards preordered, either for Farnell and RS separately, or for the aggregate of the two.

Then we might begin to see by when roughly to expect preorders to be satisfied and boards to become available ex-stock.  Uncertainty is no problem for this, as it would just indicate the ballpark quarter.  Currently we have no idea whether ex-stock is planned for Q3 2012, 2013, or even further away.

since it has been over 7 weeks past launch, and since the discrepancies

during that period involve both the quantity (1 vs. 4000) and the date (May vs. Aug),

it appears that correcting the discrepancies hasn't been a priority.

This is surprising to me because I would expect that managing a waiting list

would be a core competency for a reputable parts distributor, especially

when directly involved in the manufacturing of the device.

It seems to me that the order quantities are still insufficient for Farnell

to assign someone the duties of product manager who might be able

to make some progress.  Instead we are told that difficult RPi questions,

such as how to order from Brazil, will be referred to the RPi "team".

Another interesting discussion going on over at the Pi forums (http://www.raspberrypi.org/forum/general-discussion/im-selling-my-pi)    particularly this post (http://www.raspberrypi.org/forum/general-discussion/im-selling-my-pi/page-3/#p68068).

On another note, in March I got an e-mail stating that I should receive my Pi in Mid April, and congratulating me 'as I would be one of the first' to get my Raspberry Pi. Today I have got a mail saying that my Pi is scheduled for delivery in week commencing 4th June !

I know the Mid April date would never hold, but I was hoping to be in the 4,000 batch in early May.

Oh well, back to the Arduino's for a while longer :-)

@Steve: I giggled a bit at poing's response in the first thread you linked:  "Admittedly I'm waiting for Bill Gates to order a million Pis and hand them out in Africa within the scope of his welfare program. Checking Fox News constantly, but so far disappointed…"

My PoV on this is pragmatic:  there will always be gouging resellers as long as Pi boards are only available on preorder.  The instant they become available ex-stock, the resellers will have no ability to add a huge markup.  So, assuming that Element 14 and RS are planning high volume production that eliminates the preorder backlog in the next few months, the issue will simply vanish automatically.

With regard to john_wage's comment (your second link), I'm not at all surprised that he got jumped on.  That forum is infested with fanbois and admins who support the fanbois instead of being even-handed in their admin duties.  It's very unfortunate, and places a black mark on the Foundation for running a forum where criticism and uncomfortable questions are not allowed.

@Steve: I giggled a bit at poing's response in the first thread you linked:  "Admittedly I'm waiting for Bill Gates to order a million Pis and hand them out in Africa within the scope of his welfare program. Checking Fox News constantly, but so far disappointed…"

My PoV on this is pragmatic:  there will always be gouging resellers as long as Pi boards are only available on preorder.  The instant they become available ex-stock, the resellers will have no ability to add a huge markup.  So, assuming that Element 14 and RS are planning high volume production that eliminates the preorder backlog in the next few months, the issue will simply vanish automatically.

With regard to john_wage's comment (your second link), I'm not at all surprised that he got jumped on.  That forum is infested with fanbois and admins who support the fanbois instead of being even-handed in their admin duties.  It's very unfortunate, and places a black mark on the Foundation for running a forum where criticism and uncomfortable questions are not allowed.

Hi Morgaine, yes as soon as they are available ex-stock, then there is no profit to be made and the ebay selling will stop. To be honest, my view is that if people have got them then there is nothing anyone can do to stop them. The only one I thought a bit opportunistic was the girl (judging by the others sales) that put one on the *morning* after Liz and Eben had visited the school and had been given it. The reason given for sale was 'I'm not that really into computers'..Arggh !!

I though John's comments were very balanced, fair and factual, but that doesn't seem to count for anything over there, as you say. Some of the admins are worse than others, Abishur seems reasonable most of the time, I'm not commenting on the others.

Don't know about you, but I don't think we are going to get ex-stock orders for the rest of this year, or at least only in the 4th quarter ?

@Steve: I'm hoping that Jenny or Nicole will clarify the ex-stock plans in due course.

Currently you can't extrapolate the rate of production curve very well because the 2+8k batch was "special", so there aren't many good data points on which to base manufacturing rate.  As soon as a month or two of full-speed manufacturing is behind them though, that curve should be possible to draw, and to extrapolate into the future +/- error bounds expressing the uncertainty.

The rate of "register your interest" and preordering curves can easily be drawn right now though since they've had several weeks of it already, and those curves can be tentatively extrapolated to within some loose bounds without too much trouble.  Of course those rates of demand will change every time that there is additional promotion on the media so the curves and the extrapolations will have to be modified accordingly, but that's perfectly normal.

From the intersection of production and demand, knowing when Pi boards will become available ex-stock is a no-brainer, subject only to the error bounds.  It's not rocket science.  It's not even particularly sensitive information, since at the present time there is only a single manufacturer building boards for both companies so there isn't any competition on production rates.

This could change of course, and I do hope that multiple manufacturers end up competing in this space, but for now there isn't really any reason for not telling us when those two curves are expected to intersect and hence when the ex-stock era will begin.

Morgaine.

Morgaine,    

    It is possible to roughly estimate the order rate by assuming it is correlated

with the rate at which people join this forum, which can be seen at:

http://www.element14.com/community/groups/raspberry-pi?view=members

It would be fun to turn that data into a nice chart.

  We will soon know quite a bit about the production batches, both schedule

and rough size, as people post their scheduled delivery dates.  Steve noted

a w/c 4 June date.  It will be interesting to see any earlier dates, and how many

people get each date.  That will tell us if the batches are of roughly equal size.

Perhaps that's yet another thing to ask Jenny or Nicole.  Which of the two opposite delivery strategies has the factory been instructed to use, given that production is continuous now?

• A: "Ship a fixed-size pallet whenever enough boards have been built to fill it."

or

• B: "Ship whatever you've built (modulo box size) at regular intervals, eg. once a month."

I hope it's B for no other reason than to simplify community relations.  If boards arrive on a specific day of the month then this is very easy to communicate to the desperate masses.

Unfortunately I suspect that it will be A in order to make splitting production between Farnell and RS easier, so delivery dates will be fluid.

Morgaine.