Raspberry Pi launches at RS & Farnell - and kills their websites

[kaz911]

The $35 Raspberry Pi has launched for sale today via RS and Farnell

Result - both RS & Farnell are - DOWN.. completely down.. And Farnell servers took Element14.com down with it.

Raspberry foundation says they did warn RS & Farnell...

Follow the comedy on https://twitter.com/#!/raspberry_pi

[8086]

I've been trying and trying to get somewhere with the pre orders, but with the wrong pages loading on RS, and farnell down completely, I think I'll give up.

Farnell is supposedly sold out anyway!

[Mint.]

No way! I didn't think the thing could be so big!

[Bored@Work]

Result - both RS & Farnell are - DOWN.. completely down.. And Farnell servers took Element14.com down with it.

Couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch.

[metalphreak]

http://au.element14.com/raspberry-pi/raspbrry-pcba/sbc-raspberry-pi-model-b/dp/2081185

AU preorders Website works fine here. Datasheet is on farnell.com so won't load though.

[JuKu]

Darn, I needed something else from Farnell. I hope I can place the order later today.

[benemorius]

Has anyone heard anything about a US supplier?

[mikeselectricstuff]

A bit surprised by them selling through RS & Farnell - there must be little enough margin to start with before adding a distributor margin.

[baljemmett]

A bit surprised by them selling through RS & Farnell - there must be little enough margin to start with before adding a distributor margin.

They claim to still be getting a per-unit royalty on the devices -- it sounds like they're basically letting RS and Farnell take care of building them all under license, instead of having to worry about it themselves, which might well reduce the Foundation's overheads enough to make it worthwhile?  Just a guess, of course!

[Bored@Work]

A bit surprised by them selling through RS & Farnell - there must be little enough margin to start with before adding a distributor margin.

If I got it correctly from the bits they post then RS and Farnell did run their own manufacturing under a license. I.e. they have more control over the cost than just distributing someone else's production.

We have entered into licensed manufacture partnerships with two British companies, Premier Farnell and RS Components. They’ll be manufacturing and distributing the devices on behalf of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and handling the distribution of our first batches as they arrive in the country. The Foundation continues to make a small profit from each Raspberry Pi sold, which we’ll be putting straight back into the charity.

[EEVblog]

A bit surprised by them selling through RS & Farnell - there must be little enough margin to start with before adding a distributor margin.

Yep, they'd be making bugger-all out it I suspect.

Dave.

[updatelee]

FYI you can preorder from any element14 site. I ordered mine from canada.newark.com

Chris Lee

[mikeselectricstuff]

What isn't clear is what's happenning to the first (10K?) batch that Rpi kicked off and is due in about now - are these going to RS/Farnell or have they already been allocated by Rpi?

[GeoffS]

Got my order in, now the wait begins.

[GeoffS]

Of course if you're desperate, you can always pick one up on eBay.

Didn't take long. 

[metalphreak]

Should really stop pasting that ebay link around, because it seems to be tempting people to purchase when its clearly a scam. The RPi team on twitter have already said not to buy on ebay as there is no way he has 1, let alone 50 of them. The picture is taken from one of their videos as a screencap.

[GeoffS]

I was kind of assuming that people would work out it was a scam as the foundation has already announce that initial orders will be limited to one, not fifty. Also RaspberryPi have said that they will sell some units on eBay to prevent scalpers

As my order is unlikely to be filled from this initial batch, I might just add a few more to the order 

[Hypernova]

What's the rush? With the amount of interest there will be without a doubt many more batches to come.

[AntiProtonBoy]

Of course if you're desperate, you can always pick one up on eBay.

Didn't take long. 

lol

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Raspberry-Pi-Model-B-Ethernet-700MHz-ARM-SBC-/170793413181?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item27c414aa3d

Who wants to pick one up for 999 Pounds?

[johnboxall]

What's the rush? With the amount of interest there will be without a doubt many more batches to come.

Exactly - life goes on.

[metalphreak]

Reply by martyctalk (29-Feb-12 12:11):
Please accept our refund and apologies, our supplier has not honoured our order

Haha. Maybe he ordered 50 from farnell, and then put them on ebay as soon as the order went through, only to be DENIED. 

[slateraptor]

Also RaspberryPi have said that they will sell some units on eBay to prevent scalpers

Thank goodness they're making a conscious effort to deter scalpers. Damn opportunists abound.

[Bored@Work]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Raspberry-Pi-Model-B-Ethernet-700MHz-ARM-SBC-/170793413181?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item27c414aa3d

Who wants to pick one up for 999 Pounds?

This listing was ended by the seller because the item is no longer available.

Seller got cold feet or did find an idiot doing the deal outside of eBay.

[FreeThinker]

Of course if you're desperate, you can always pick one up on eBay.

Didn't take long. 

Sold Out

[caroper]

I got my order in at RS South Africa R259.20 is  not a bad price


I believe that China let them down on the initial order of 10K parts so they have farmed out production to Farnell and RS who are able to take preorder's and manage manufacture and distribution better. I have only been following this from the edge so maybe someone on the twitter list can fill in the details.


Damn good specs for a board at that price though even if I never end up using it I can put it in the trophy cabinet along with my Sinclair ZX80