Raspberry Pi (Trading) Ltd. finally announced

Reasonably balanced piece from Rory Cellan-Jones at the BBC on the Pi and the lack of traction in the educational market.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24435809

"But there isn't an awful lot of evidence that a computer designed for children is in the hands of many at the moment. Upton admits that this is a concern"

It's a bit puzzling that there have been no journalists that I have seen who have mentioned the new RPF CEO,

including this latest BBC article. Eben's announcement at RPI.org didn't give any specifics, such as when 

Mr. Howarth left ARM, or when he joined RPF.  Nor have I seen any announcements  from ARM about the

loss of an Executive Marketing VP. 

I've seen some public announcements of Mr. Howarth's ARM stock sales,

Feb 12, 2011:  75,816 shares sold

Feb 14, 2012:  122,651 shares sold at 570 pence each, leaving 85,000 shares

Mar 13, 2012: 1,663 shares sold at a price of 575 pence per share

Mar 14, 2012: 48,337 shares sold at a price of 573.88 pence per share, leaving 35,000 shares. 

On June 12, 2012 he is listed as an ARM PDMR (Persons Discharging Managerial Responsibilities),

but on October 31, 2012, he is not on that list.   So it appears that he may have left ARM sometime

between June and October of 2012.

Edited to add: ARM's current Chief Marketing Officer, Ian Drew, was appointed to that position

in July, 2012, which would be consistent with Mr. Howarth perhaps leaving the EVP Marketing

position at around that time.

Not sure if you've seen "Adam Curtis - the rise and fall of the TV journalist" but sadly in the UK for tech news at least it seems TV journalists rely on what they are fed, because they don't understand the technology (generally speaking - not speaking about Rory C-J specifically, I've not read much of his material). Over the years, excellent science shows like Horizon disappeared and were dumbed-down.. :-(

Some innovative material was produced for commercial channels in the UK (like 'Secret Life of Machines' - worth checking out on youtube) in the past but today no channel would attempt anything remotely like that :-(

Just watched it now.  Hilarious.  

In this case it doesn't seem so much a technology story as a business story.

High powered marketing executive with decade of experience at high-flying public company 

brought in to run non-profit foundation consisting of not much more than Clive and himself, 

as far as we know, after Foundation has divested itself of responsibility for engineering and 

marketing of revolutionary product. 

Eben's wording seems quite odd:  

"I’m very pleased to be able to announce that Lance Howarth has joined us as Foundation CEO,  ..."

Why wasn't Eben able to announce this earlier?   Normally, you'd announce how pleased you are to snag

such a high-powered executive, rather than how pleased you are to be able to announce it. 

I assume that the press hasn't picked up the story because the RPF probably hasn't fed the story to the press,

even though they're pleased to be able to announce it.

The Foundation have finally got round to lodging their 2012 return with the Charity Commission:

http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/search-for-a-charity/?txt=raspberry+pi+foundation

Lots of interesting tidbits. 

The financial summary under the "Financial History" tab shows income of £11,152,637

which appears to be a £10M mistake, as under the "Charity overview" tab it shows £1,152,637. 

It shows 0 employees (as of Dec 2012).

I think Clive was hired in early 2013, and employees (and accounts) of the Trading company are apparently not included. 

During the year purchases of stock[inventory] totalling £129,195 (2011: £20,001) were made

from Broadcom Corporation a company which one of the trustees, Dr E Upton, is employed.

I presume these are the SoC, but the quantity isn't stated, so we can't calculate a unit price.

If the RPF was manufacturing model As but not model B's, that might explain why the 2012

figure is only 6.5 times the 2011 figure.  Total stocks[inventory] at end of 2012 is listed as £144,063.

Intially, Raspberry Pi units were being provided purely to educational

establishments.  However, due to the popularity of the Raspberry Pi units

within the global information technology community, units are now eligible

for purchase by commercial customers and individuals worldwide through

licence agreements.  As a result of this development, the Trustees established

Raspberry Pi (Trading) Ltd, a wholly owned trading subsidiary, in

December 2012.  Any profits generated by the company will be payable

to Raspberry Pi Foundation under Gift Aid as a donation thereby allowing

the charity to further its charitable aims.

This claim that initial units went purely to educational establishments isn't consistent

with my recollection, or with early RPi.org articles promoting media centres, such as on

January 21, 2012:

www.raspberrypi.org/archives/571

d.

ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE AND DECISION MAKING

The Trustees are responsible for establishing the overall policy and direction

to enable the charity to meet its objectives.  Due to the current size of the charity,

all management decisions are taken by the Trustees as a whole.

No mention of Eben running the Foundation after resigning as trustee.

A restricted grant of £618,509 is shown (presumably from Google's charity),

none of which was spent in 2012.

Non Primary purpose trading income is shown as £420,768.

Trading expenditure is shown as £279,871

but sadly in the UK for tech news at least it seems TV journalists rely on what they are fed, because they don't understand the technology (generally speaking - not speaking about Rory C-J specifically,

Here's what Rory C-J and Eben showed as the progression of RPF's RPi prototypes,

with a puzzled comment from Rory on how it started large, got really small "last May",

then got larger, and then smaller.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17196115

It's hard to tell if he actually knew that this wasn't really a progression of RPF's prototypes;

the smallest was a Broadcom MicroDB development board, developed in 2009, not "last May",

with apparently nothing to do with the RPi.    Gordon Hollingworth wrote:

"after shoving it under Eben’s nose for the tenth time he and David finally took it to the BBC".

http://www.element14.com/community/message/83413#83413

The next one, the so-called Alpha board, would be more accurately described as developed and

manufactured by Broadcom, rather than RPF.  They don't show a closeup of the Alpha,

so you can't see the Broadcom logo.  In another RPF video, the Broadcom logo is taped over.

Rory C-J doesn't mention the prototype that the RPF was actually founded in 2008 with the

intention of making, which was based on the Broadcom BCM2727, which didn't include an ARM.

but sadly in the UK for tech news at least it seems TV journalists rely on what they are fed, because they don't understand the technology (generally speaking - not speaking about Rory C-J specifically,

Here's what Rory C-J and Eben showed as the progression of RPF's RPi prototypes,

with a puzzled comment from Rory on how it started large, got really small "last May",

then got larger, and then smaller.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17196115

It's hard to tell if he actually knew that this wasn't really a progression of RPF's prototypes;

the smallest was a Broadcom MicroDB development board, developed in 2009, not "last May",

with apparently nothing to do with the RPi.    Gordon Hollingworth wrote:

"after shoving it under Eben’s nose for the tenth time he and David finally took it to the BBC".

http://www.element14.com/community/message/83413#83413

The next one, the so-called Alpha board, would be more accurately described as developed and

manufactured by Broadcom, rather than RPF.  They don't show a closeup of the Alpha,

so you can't see the Broadcom logo.  In another RPF video, the Broadcom logo is taped over.

Rory C-J doesn't mention the prototype that the RPF was actually founded in 2008 with the

intention of making, which was based on the Broadcom BCM2727, which didn't include an ARM.

Useful reporting :-) it got smaller, but then bigger :-)  I guess he wasn't briefed beforehand in sufficient detail. Aaaah, even the poor cameraman wasn't really made aware of what to show, with a half-attempt at zooming in  into the computer monitor area when (presumably) the Scratch game was being demo'd ;-)

BBC does some great stuff too, so I should't be too negative : )

Useful reporting :-) it got smaller, but then bigger :-)

Of course, that is an astute observation, since normally prototypes don't alternate

getting smaller and bigger.  And in fact, it's a big clue that this might not actually be

the progression of RPF's prototypes.  But Eben doesn't want to try to explain, and

Rory just lets the observation hang in the air rather than pushing for an explanation.