Excellent, I think this really helps to clarify a lot of the questions hanging in the air. On Apr 13, 2014 6:07 PM, "Jason Kridner" <jkrid...@beagleboard.org> wrote:
> Just about to post this to http://beagleboard.org/blog, but it > wouldn't hurt to get a bit of community feedback before pushing this > out there.... > > Dude, where's my BeagleBone Black? I hear that question a LOT. No, we > weren't sleeping, but sometimes it takes a minute for a plan to come > together. And don't you love it when a plan comes together? > > Your BeagleBone Black is on the way and below are the whys and hows. > > Buying a BeagleBone Black back around October last year was easy---and > then suddenly they were gone. Having a big launch and then slowing > down to a more steady pace of production is what is normally expected. > Demand was strong, but distributors were showing a small amount of > stock and people were getting their boards on demand. Based on the > status, distributors had requested CircuitCo (the Richardson, Texas > based manufacturer of all official BeagleBoard.org boards) to provide > boards at a certain pace, and production dropped from about 6,000 a > week at launch to around 3,000 a week. > > Then came Radio Shack, filling their stores with Make's Getting > Started with BeagleBone kit. Then the Christmas rush. Then the Georgia > Tech massively open online course on control of mobile robots hosted > on Coursera. We had a couple of small production boosts, but haven't > been able to make any dent in the demand. Everyone is starting to find > out what BeagleBone Black can do, using it in their classes, hobbies, > prototypes---and products. > > When it comes to those people using a BeagleBone Black in an end > product, well, the BeagleBoard.org terms and conditions clearly say we > aren't responsible for the quality in those cases. Nevertheless, the > quality speaks for itself and many people are choosing to simply drop > them into things beyond just a few prototype units. In practice, we'll > never know unless you try to return a bunch of boards at once for > repairs. Our desire is that people using the boards in products work > directly with a contract manufacturer or distributor to enable boards > builds to be planned out in time and with terms and conditions that > won't hurt BeagleBoard.org's ability to supply classrooms, hobbyists > and professionals building prototypes. Still, if distributors show > stock, I expect people building products to continue to chew up some > of the board supply. > > While these people building products are certainly sucking up a lot of > boards, it is clear they aren't the only source of the high demand. > Some of our distribution partners, most notably Adafruit and Special > Computing, put quantity limits of one board per customer on their > orders to help keep supply going to individual makers. I took a look > at Adafruit's website while they were showing some sock and observed > board disappearing at the rate of about 2-3 PER MINUTE. One tweet from > me and they were sold out again. > > This all leads to the obvious conclusion: we need more capacity. To > accomplish this, we are taking a multiple prong approach of increasing > capacity at CircuitCo as well as bringing on an additional > manufacturer. These two prongs are summarized below. > > Prong #1 - Ramping up production at CircuitCo > > Ramping up production costs money. More test equipment is needed. > Orders on various parts must be accelerated. Additional staff must be > hired to run additional shifts. CircuitCo has been fantastic at taking > the risk for us, but the margins for BeagleBone Black aren't the > friendliest for them to take on these additional costs. At initial > launch, it is a benefit for them to get exposed to more customers for > their core business, complex circuit assembly and engineering > services, but shipping more of the exact same board isn't going to > give them a lot more exposure. > > We're really close to shifting the distribution shipped on our boards > from Angstrom Distribution to Debian. Feedback from different people, > especially Adafruit, tells us this will improve usability in the > largest segments of our community. Angstrom Distribution is much more > customizable and is very friendly to professional developers looking > to tweak the most out of the system, but for many novices it > introduces a barrier to learning. Debian is the basis for Ubuntu, > includes ARM Cortex-A8 support in their mainline and is very familiar > to a huge population of developers. It also takes a bit more space on > the flash storage to provide the best user experience. > > To provide the best experience of using Debian on BeagleBone Black, we > are connecting the switch-over to an increase in the on-board eMMC > flash storage from 2GB to 4GB, leaving more free room in which you can > work. The eMMC is faster and more reliable than micro-SD cards, so > this is adding a lot of value---and a little bit of cost. > > These BeagleBone Blacks with Debian and 4GB eMMC will be called Rev C > and they will likely cost a bit more at most distributors. This extra > money is helping CircuitCo pay for the additional expense of the eMMC, > but also to cover costs for ramping production to higher-than-ever > rates. > > With the additional capacity CircuitCo is bringing on, we expect to be > able to fill all end-user back-orders for the Rev B boards by early > May and shift all production to Rev C. With around 150,000 boards on > *distributor* back-orders, we'll be working with distributors to > quickly accept board shipments such that CircuitCo isn't sitting on > any units. > > Come mid-May, you should be able to easily get your hands on a Rev C > board. Some distributors are already taking back-orders for them now. > We'll continue to try to push as many boards as we can through > distributors *not* taking back-orders as well to make sure there is a > continuity of supply. > > Prong #2 - Enabling production of the BeagleBoard Compliant Element14 > BeagleBone Black > > We've launched a BeagleBoard Compliant logo program, > http://beagleboard.org/logo. Element14 is currently the exclusive > licensee of this logo program and has agreed to pay a small royalty to > the BeagleBoard.org Foundation as part of this license. It means that > we've verified they can produce quality clones of BeagleBone Black. It > will be up to them to maintain the quality. As with everything going > on around BeagleBoard.org, we'll be closely monitoring the public > BeagleBoard mailing list, http://beagleboard.org/discuss, for any and > all feedback. > > Element14 is the parent company for Embest, who has been making > BeagleBone Black replicas for the China market since the initial > launch back in April of last year, so they have some experience > already. This move takes them beyond just China and will keep them in > more lock-step with software and hardware revisions coming from > BeagleBoard.org. To satisfy demand, they initially offered some of the > Embest-branded boards in the US market, but you'll see the future > BealgeBoard Compliant boards will be branded as "element14 BeagleBone > Black". > > Element14 has a world-wide reach and a notable production capacity. > With all of the growing demand for BeagleBone Black, they will need > it. I consider this a huge win for open hardware! > > --Jason > > -- > For more options, visit http://beagleboard.org/discuss > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "BeagleBoard" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to beagleboard+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- For more options, visit http://beagleboard.org/discuss --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BeagleBoard" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to beagleboard+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
