It might be worth considering that we sell about 5M Pi's a year, and have a great engineering team, along with people who know both the educational AND commercial markets very well.LeMoog wrote: ↑Wed Mar 14, 2018 1:19 pmHmm, tweaked 3B with PoE and new LAN chip, it is a shame that they didn't include an option for more RAM like the original Acorn B+.
Given that the Organisation's intended market (electronic project hobbyists and education) then less is OFC more but the question is, can education and electronic projects alone maintain the RPi, it certainly didn't for the beeb
Those that remember Acorn ( B+ and Master as a stop gap whilst they created the ARM for the Arch) will also remember what it cost Acorn. Even after the ARM came out and was the best micro computing CPU of the time, Acorn had already lost control of their market
My thinking is that it might be worth the Org finding out if the markets they are willing to support is sufficent to keep the organisation going when all the other customers move on to better things. The Pi still has the most optimised ARM linux and open hardware documentation but it is ultimately for tech that has moved on and I for one know what happens next if nothing changes.
Then ask yourself, are we really sitting on our backsides doing nothing whilst competitors (who singularly fail to sell 5M devices a year) overtake us?
Look on the B+ as an evolution of the 3B rather than an entirely new model (although its a great upgrade). Entirely new will have to wait a bit longer, but don;t worry, its on its way, but the development of a fast, robust, certified product takes time.