Raspberry Pi announces new partners
The Raspberry Pi Foundation, creator of the Raspberry Pi ARM-based tiny computer that sells for $25, has announced that it has signed up Premier Farnell and RS Components as licensed manufacturers of the devices. The Foundation explained that the new model …
Context & Ripple Effects
The timing is the story: the Raspberry Pi Foundation's $25 ARM-based board only went on sale the day before this announcement, with the February launch window met at the last moment and a RAM bump to the Model A landing alongside it. A charity-run project had barely begun shipping when it signed two of the largest names in electronics distribution, Premier Farnell and RS Components, as licensed manufacturers rather than mere resellers.
The move converts a single-source hobbyist product into a multi-manufacturer line overnight. Computerworld picked the story up twice on the same day, indicating how closely the low-cost Linux board's supply situation was being watched.
First-order effects
- Premier Farnell and RS Components take on manufacturing responsibility for the $25 board immediately, multiplying output beyond whatever the Foundation itself could produce in the launch week.
- The Foundation shifts from building hardware to certifying and licensing it, freeing the charity to focus on the device's design and educational mission while partners carry production risk.
Second-order effects
- Two established distributors now have a direct commercial stake in the Raspberry Pi ecosystem, giving the board shelf presence and procurement channels that rival low-cost ARM boards sold through smaller channels lack.
- Licensing manufacturing to competing distributors creates internal price and availability competition between Farnell and RS stock, which should stabilize supply rather than fragmenting it.
Third-order effects
- If the licensed-manufacturer model holds, it becomes a template for how small foundations and open-hardware projects scale: design once, license production to distributors with global reach, and let channel players absorb the capital cost of manufacturing.
- A $25 Linux computer reaching industrial distribution channels points toward embedded and prototyping markets adopting hobbyist-priced hardware as a standard component rather than a curiosity.
The trend: Low-cost computing hardware is scaling through licensed manufacturing by major electronics distributors, decoupling a design's success from its creator's production capacity.