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end of "register your interest" at element14

e14 Contributor

The "register your interest" page at

http://downloads.element14.com/raspberryPi2.html?isRedirect=true&ICID=raspberrypigroup_us

 

now says:

 

"We will be opening up to general Raspberry Pi orders on Thursday 5th July. Therefore we will cease to take registrations from Monday 2nd July. Any Registrations placed up until Monday 2nd July will be invited to order prior to general orders commencing. You will be able to place your order directly from Thursday 5th July on an ongoing basis, for deliveries in approximately 4 weeks."

  • in reply to e14 Contributor

    A new wrinkle today, Liz wrote at the end of this thread:

     

    http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=10189

     

    "About educational orders - I don't get to see the actual order books, but I'm in email contact with a large number of UK teachers who have placed classroom-sized orders (we've been able to hook teachers up with Farnell to get this done before multiorder went mainstream), and met about 30 teachers out of the blue at the Times Educational Festival who have placed large orders too."

     

    so it appears that there has been some sort of informal start to the

    quantity orders for education, at least with Farnell, in advance of

    any formal educational launch.

  • in reply to e14 Contributor

    Bill Brosch wrote:

     

    I'm told (via chat) that my RPi will be shipped in mid September. 

    Nice..  Are you in the UK, or elsewhere ? 

     

    Im in the UK and I was given a 3rd Sept estimated ship date for one ordered on Monday 2nd July - while the registration page was still saying delivery within 4 weeks.

    Maybe they're expecting a 200K delivery at the beginning of Sept or something.

  • in reply to e14 Contributor

    coder27 wrote:

     

    A new wrinkle today, Liz wrote at the end of this thread:

     

    "we've been able to hook teachers up with Farnell to get this done before multiorder went mainstream"

     

    Read that on the forum a minute ago.. Seemed a bit odd, since multiorder certainly doesn't appear to have gone mainstream at all yet..  Not that I have anything against them going into education first, but the timing doesn't seem to work out very well... The mid September dates we seem to be seeing are after the schools are back, so not a lot of preparation is going to get done in advance..

  • Ho hum... "Opening to orders Mid July"  2012 ?  2013 ?

     

    it would be nice if they'd just make their mind up and leave the same message on the page for more than a couple of hours at a time.

  • Who is manufacturing these? Surely there are manufacturing facilities that can handle orders of several hundred thousands, seeing as there is at least that amount of interest (maybe millions?). Did anyone call FoxConn? I'd be willing to pay a premium (like double!), to get a reliable unit in a reliable timeframe. I think we're all okay with the unit being reliable, but drip-feeding with very little feedback to anxious consumers is a PR nightmare waiting to happen. Great ideas with poor execution lower barriers to entry to competitors, pretty much all on the basis of supply chain management, rather than the 'rocket science' side of things... Imagine if a mobile phone supplier (yes, I realise they operate for profit) couldn't fulfill their promises - that's hard to come back from. Maybe the anticipated demand was underestimated, but it's not difficult to ramp up production, especially if orders of magnitude of underestimation are involved. Offer two-tier pricing like EBay - but it now for $z more... Make sure that z = twice the cost of accelerated production, plough the 'bonus' into further R&D. (BTW, very few ppl would go for the 'wait around' option!). So you get revenue-maximisation (sort of, could be higher) AND happy customers - win win! The goal of a sub-$35 computer is not compromised, if ppl are willing to wait for it. I'm guessing there are a lot of ppl out there who would pay near $100 just to be able to get their hands on one! Order in April, receive it in September - really???

  • in reply to e14 Contributor

    Did anyone call FoxConn? I'd be willing to pay a premium (like double!), to get a reliable unit in a reliable timeframe.

    Hmm.. I know people working in Pardubice and Kutna Hora and I'm trying to get my head around those two words in the same sentence image

  • in reply to e14 Contributor

    Nope, out in the USA.

    ANd after checking this morning, no change in the "expected shipping date". <frown>

  • in reply to e14 Contributor

    @ selsinork

     

    Well, the beer is so good there that I can see how reliability issues might arise!!!

  • in reply to e14 Contributor

    Maybe these new big educational orders are the reason that the "end of June" (before 4/18) and July/August (after 4/18) are late, and also why the 4/18 specific orders are now in Spetember...

  • in reply to e14 Contributor

    No, I think it's because they have no clue about business in general. 'Design it and they will come' is not a strategy with much potential for success... Some thought about logistics, quality control, scale, customer relationship management, warehousing, PR, contractual issues in manufacturing, and from what it seems, a whole host of other issues, may have given this project a lot more credibility. I desperately want one, but as a business, they pretty much suck (non-profit or otherwise).