Is the long awaited Raspberry Pi flotation about to happen?

A flotation of the company behind the Raspberry Pi computer could come sooner rather than later, according to reports. A write-up in The Sunday Times over the weekend cited unnamed City sources as suggesting that a £500 million ($627 million) flotation could happen within the next two weeks, although might be delayed "if …

[werdsmith]

The price has not crept up this is a complete lie, $5 on the latest ones, when 12 years of inflation is taken into account, the prices is actually less for far more capable product.

You can also buy a Zero 2W for about one third the price of the original $35 Pi B, and you'll get 4 cores instead of one, double the RAM, faster clock and WiFi.

[TheRON]

I never cared for its Desktop "capacity" if you can call that. GUI support sure helped sales but for the most part the Pi was great as a headless low-power platform. I think in someways it also lost out to containers and other VMs, which were still evolving. I was sincerely hoping the Pi would bring hardware clusters or something equally exotic as an alternative - like the Ubuntu MAAS. In any case, the Pi is no longer any contender for a modest low-power platform free of feature-creep.

[werdsmith]

There is more than one version of Pi. Modest low power platform that is more suited to headless tasks remains the Zero 2W which hasn't changed since 2021.

Turing Pi 2 is a cluster board for Pi CMs, though they have their own (but more expensive) Turing modules because they like the RK3588.

It's true that the extra processing/GPU capability of the later Pis is really mostly useful for pushing pixels around a screen, but the Swiss Army Knife like flexibility is a strength, a VM or container generally won't have GPIO, won't mount HAT extensions, can't be built into other projects as a component, won't sit quietly using low power whilst acting as a DNS sink to trap adverts, I could go on and on.

[Jusme]

Oh dear...

n/t

[m4r35n357]

Re: Oh dear...

ARM, sold abroad.

RPi, presumably soon to be sold abroad.

This is why we (the UK) can't have nice things.

[werdsmith]

Re: Oh dear...

Nobody can blame the founders for being rewarded for their idea and years of work. And there is the possibility that they could use the money to do something amazing.

But I really don't know of a single example of these flotations working out well for the consumers over the long term.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Oh dear...

I think you are reading it wrong.

It's more like founders have lost confidence in the UK and its future economy. It's basically the time to jump ship with some of the earned riches.

[m4r35n357]

Re: Oh dear...

The only strategy our "entrepreneur" class seems to care about is how to cash out in the biggest way possible.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Oh dear...

Yes, especially here in the UK where the pattern for most seems to be found company, make mint, sell it, get a knighthood or better and retire. In the US we so often hear of "serial entrepreneurs" do who all of the above, sans knighthood, and start all over again with another bright idea.

[CowHorseFrog]

Re: Oh dear...

Their work ?

The reason the PI is popular is because of many community things, which the founders have not contributed at all.

What a way to steal other peoples hard work and give it to the founders.

[werdsmith]

Re: Oh dear...

Pi is hardware. Raspberry Pi developed Pi and sold it for minimal margins.

Raspberry Pi refined the OS, optimised Wayland for VideoCore GPU, paid for Vulkan to be supported.

The community grew around that seed.

[CowHorseFrog]

Re: Oh dear...

werd: Pi is hardware. Raspberry Pi developed Pi and sold it for minimal margins.

cow: so what if they did.

If you want to get technical, without the CPU the PI would be nothing, except a breadboard with a few wires.

Yes the PI is hardware, but it would be no where without the software support and community.

~

werd: Raspberry Pi refined the OS, optimised Wayland for VideoCore GPU, paid for Vulkan to be supported.

cow: And without the rest, it would be nothing.

You are just nit picking and changing the goal posts to pretend that justifies the statement.

Thousands of years ago somebody invented the alphabet... are we really going to pretend they should own the world for one act ?

[werdsmith]

Re: Oh dear...

You're not making any sense with your weird alphabet straw man.

[CowHorseFrog]

Re: Oh dear...

So why do you get to pick that "inventing" the PI is so special ?

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Oh dear...

Flotation doesn't HAVE to mean selling out. They could only sell minority of shares and retain the rest in the company and therefore still retain full control. But most don't do that, they sell a majority, enjoy the flash cars, houses and yachts and the company gets borged.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Oh dear...

Darktrace being sold abroad

[simonlb]

Re: Oh dear...

I'm really hoping this doesn't happen. If it does, how long after the flotation before a private equity firm get involved, the asset stripping commences before the company is completely dead within less than three years and all the IP is owned by a serial patent troll?

[heyrick]

Better to buy a spare Pi or two

Before the price inexplicably doubles because mumble mumble shareholder mumble profits mumble.

[Gene Cash]

Re: Better to buy a spare Pi or two

Or because they're discontinued because they don't bring enough profit.

[Dan 55]

Re: Better to buy a spare Pi or two

Buying a company then discontinuing all its products is indeed a very MBA move.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Better to buy a spare Pi or two

Of coarse! No need to bother with continuing a product line and all the hassle that gives after MBA (My Bonus Acquired) for the "successful" merger!

[TVU]

As with any commercialisation, the danger is that the organisation eventually loses its original benevolent ethos.

[Gene Cash]

There's no "danger" - it's absolutely certain once it's "everything for the shareholders"

And then as far as I'm concerned, the platform is dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

Zero Pi

Yesterday I was looking at a new hardware controller box that uses the Pi Zero as its CPU. You could buy it and install your own $10 Pi Zero. But since there are none available on the open market, and there NEVER are any on the market, they are always out of stock, the company will sell you the $10 Pi Zero pre-installed for $70.

I finally found a Pi 5 in stock. Oh wait, it's a $200 bundle with power supply, plastic case, and a chiclet keyboard. I have better parts than that sitting in my junk box.

The Raspberry Pi is still vaporware. You can't build anything on the platform because it's not available to end users except through high-markup price gouging companies that use their exclusive insider access to get the compute modules. Maybe someday there will be a time when anyone can buy a Pi online but so far, that has been precisely NEVER.

[Martin-R]

Re: Zero Pi

This was true a couple of years back, but UK stock of pretty much all models has been fine for a year or so. Don't know where you're based but as you mention $, US stock looks fine too - https://rpilocator.com/?country=US

[werdsmith]

Re: Zero Pi

The Raspberry Pi is easily available, vapourware it is definitely not. Some people fell asleep 2

years ago and are still waking up.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Zero Pi

Have a heart - he probably died of COVID and doesn't know it yet - no need to cause unnecessary alarm.

[CowHorseFrog]

Re: Zero Pi

Today the PI is one of the worst deals because its rather limited.

The USB performance on all PIS is crap because of the shared controller. The CPU Is also very lousy.

You are almost better of buying an Apple Mini rather than making a farm of a few Pis for different things.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Zero Pi

This. I got RPi 5 with NVMe hat to see if I can make a little server for some local services I need.

It's very fussy about drives and still painfully slow by today standards.

I eventually got a post lease laptop for the same price that is much faster and doesn't really take that much more space.

I think they missed the point with that device. It's too generic and it doesn't really have a purpose, apart from filling a drawer with the rest of RPis that one day may be handy for something (probably never).

[werdsmith]

Re: Zero Pi

Yet millions of them have found uses, most of which you couldn't use a Mac Mini for.

Some people are so insular and self centred they think the thing is defined by their requirements alone.

[CowHorseFrog]

Re: Zero Pi

Bravo.

Im sure they have, and im simply pointing out if you want a more performance and you require several Pis, you are better off buying a mac mini both for performance and cost.

[werdsmith]

Re: Zero Pi

And you just ran off with the state the fucking obvious award.

[Amorous Cow Turd]

Re: Zero Pi

What are you talking about? I bought a PI400 a couple of years ago for my kids to muck about with, and am about to buy another. No problems with availability whatsoever.

[Chris Evans]

Re: Zero Pi

Today I could buy 1000 RASPBERRY-PI RPI ZERO_W_V2 from Farnell UK

[Abominator]

if they founders keep a majority voting share and they use the capital to invest and expand the business then they could be onto something really good.

Or they may do neither of those things and that will be the end of Raspberry Pi.

Been using these for years and these days spend more time with the Arduino's. For when you need really low power.

[werdsmith]

A 2040 based device is something like an Arduino but a Raspberry Pi is something different altogether.

[CowHorseFrog]

WTF ?

WHy believe in bullshit that never happens.

[elsergiovolador]

It's a shame they don't include an FPGA on board that could take over the I/O header. That's one improvement is desperately needed and it will massively help with education effort.

[CowHorseFrog]

The PI has the worst possible USB controller. The speeds are almost USB2 even on the USB3 ports.

[CowHorseFrog]

Yeh they are so cheap they wont give a few more usb controllers and you want them to give a signiicantly more expensive component like a FPGA chip ?

[werdsmith]

There are FPGA hats for Pi.

[GraXXoR]

I used to use arduinos after the Pi’s got hard to get my hands on. But now I’m fully into ESP32 territory for embedded systems.

I’d feel sad if the RPi did float and became another victim of shareholder greed, but there are alternatives that occupy much of the same territory on the Venn Diagramme.

[codejunky]

Hmm

People seem to be worrying about this as though companies shouldnt be floated, maybe they could get the money together to buy

[werdsmith]

Re: Hmm

What a totally idiotic comment.

[codejunky]

Re: Hmm

@werdsmith

"What a totally idiotic comment."

Of course, people claim its important until it comes to contributing to it such as paying.

[werdsmith]

Re: Hmm

"Of course, people claim its important until it comes to contributing to it such as paying."

Of course everybody is in a position to raise millions.

[codejunky]

Re: Hmm

@werdsmith

"Of course everybody is in a position to raise millions."

So its not so important then. When general taxes are raised 1p the gov rakes in millions on a single country. Raspberry Pi's are sold around the world, so if people care they could surely come up with a funding page or some such to keep things going as they are? A true collaboration of the people to own something they hold precious. Freely, willingly choosing to buy the means of production of this device they care about.

Or of course people can just complain on the internet to other strangers that someone else will buy large shares of it.

[werdsmith]

Re: Hmm

WTF ??

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hmm

Thanks for your 2 cents.

[that one in the corner]

On a brighter note...

After reading all the (sadly realistic) doom and gloom above, at least we can be reassured by the information

> Enterprising enthusiasts have also managed to coax Windows 11 into life on the platform.

that masochism is alive and well.

[ecofeco]

Wait. What?

Raspberry is going corporate?

Good to know. I can scratch them off my list.

[Mozzie]

Never any mention of the RP2040

I've Raspberry Pi'd since the Model B with composite video out and it will be a shame to see this entire ecosystem get swallowed up by some private equity firm.

I remember it being touted as the new BBC Micro to repeat the ingenuity of the early 80's and the dawn of the home computing era. Now almost every Raspberry Pi I come across is in the form of a compute module on some kind of carrier board for signage, custom audio devices, equipment and machine controllers or if more unusually it's a genuine standard form factor Pi, it's bundled with a pile of very expensive components and accessories (or cheap, but just pricey) as some kind of awkward introduction to programming and electronics kit.

I'm wondering whats going to happen with the RP2040. It's an incredible little microcontroller and found on numerous modules, hobby through to professional, that isn't balancing on a knifes edge of trade issues with China.

[werdsmith]

Re: Never any mention of the RP2040

Never was a BBC Micro. BBC micro was expensive, for affluent folk and out of reach of most. Raspberry Pi is very cheap and brought computing within reach, in that respect it is more like a more capable ZX81.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Never any mention of the RP2040

Computing was always basically free. You can just grab a twig and write numbers on the sand, add, multiply, divide to your hearts content.

[CowHorseFrog]

Truth is the PI is not actually a good deal.

When you add the required extras you are almost better off buying a Apple Mini. I used to have a few PIs for my Plex setup and pihole etc, and the Mini actually ended up replacing them all giving far more for less money.

[werdsmith]

Better off buying an Apple mini to build into my project compared to an $35 Pi or a $15 Zero 2W.

FFS.

[CowHorseFrog]

Here we go. ..

Its always about YOU isnt it ?

werd: Better off buying an Apple mini to build into my project compared to an $35 Pi or a $15 Zero 2W

cow: Firsly a $35 PI is useless, it requires a power supply ($15-20)and it if you want to do things properly you also need a case ($20), so suddenly your $35PI is actually $65ish, but hey why let FACTS get in the way of the bullshit.

[werdsmith]

cow: Firsly a $35 PI is useless, it requires a power supply ($15-20)and it if you want to do things properly you also need a case ($20), so suddenly your $35PI is actually $65ish, but hey why let FACTS get in the way of the bullshit.

How many Mac Minis can you buy for $65?

In fact, how may Mac Mini PSUs can you buy for $65?

You appear to have the monopoly on bullshit. You also seem to be the one who believes your own use case is universal, I wasn't stating my own uses, just other ones.

You are the self centred one. You are being argumentative for the sake of it, so you know what you can do. Bye.

[CowHorseFrog]

werd: You appear to have the monopoly on bullshit.

cow:

Im simply pointing out that you couldnt even be honest about the actual price of a *FUNCTIONAL* PI, you had to "LIE" and pretend it didnt need a power supply and case.

[lostinspace]

Except an 8Gb Pi with all the extras (case, SSD etc) is around £200 and a Mac Mini is about £650. So not really close.

Sure the mini will be a lot faster but it depends on your requirements if you need to spend 3x the price.

[CowHorseFrog]

In my post i clearly stated i replaced several pis with a macmini and i also mentioned this gave me considerable better performance and reliability.

[CowHorseFrog]

Secondly a PI as a plex server sux. The networking performance is terrible, and it cant even handle transcoding without stutters etc something thaat just doesnt happen on a MAC MINI.

[Stu J]

Well, yes. That's because it's a low-power low-cost device. It's not designed for video transcoding which is a relatively specialised use case FFS...

It's like you're trying to compare a hammer to a screwdriver when all you want to do is put screws in things - a hammer's the wrong tool for the job. A hammer's still a really useful tool to have though...

I've got a 3B, 4, and 5 in a rack in my loft, the 4 and 5 with cheap SSDs instead of SD cards. I've got a Zero W acting as a Bluetooth proxy downstairs.

Total cost significantly less (like, less than 1/3rd) than a Mac Mini capable of doing the same thing.

3B runs my ADS-B receiver and feeder (docker on raspbian)

4 runs HomeAssistant and NGINX very capably (docker on raspbian)

5 runs OpenWRT (bare metal) and acts as the router for my entire network, including PPPoE termination, firewall, NAT, etc, etc. Best router I've ever had, by a long, long way.

[CowHorseFrog]

how much did you spend on all the above ?

One day you will want to do a bit more, and it would have been cheaper to start out with a mac mini or some other more capable SBC.

[Stu J]

Crucially what I've spent on it has been incremental. I've added bits as I felt the need to, or as I could afford to.

I can get security patches probably ad infinitum. Even if the Raspberry Pi foundation went bump tomorrow, the community's large enough to keep on supporting even the older legacy Pis.

Whereas with your Mac Mini, you're beholden to Apple and when they decide they want to pull the plug on supporting your hardware.

Don't get me wrong, the Mac Mini is a decent small box computer, but we're comparing grapes with pineapples here.

It's OK, you can stop shilling for Apple now. Nobody asked for you to come on here and start evangelising about the Mac Mini, and you're being about as tedious and annoying with it as the people who try to convert you to their religion in the street when you're just trying to go about your daily business.

[CowHorseFrog]

stu: It's OK, you can stop shilling for Apple now. Nobody asked for you to come on here and start evangelising about the Mac Mini, and you're being about as tedious and annoying with it as the people who try to convert you to their religion in the street when you're just trying to go about your daily business.

cow: Im only givng an alternative. ETA Prime has a new vid about a windows SBC for $150 that kills the PI in every way when judged on performance. If you want some grunt thats better deal, if you want a simple SBC to do very basic things then get a pi.

[cbrisuda]

Alternatives

Oh dear… although with availability problems, not sure it matters at this point.

Long live the Libre Le Potato

[werdsmith]

Re: Alternatives

What availability problems? Is it still 2022 where you are?

[trevorde]

What happened next

Microsoft buys company at 3x market value. Eben Upton cashes out and buys Isle of Wight.

Steve Ballmer becomes new CEO and announces an even more powerful and expensive RPi6. A fully specced RPi6 costs more than a Dell server. Dell share price rockets. Investors short RPi.

Microsoft ports Windows 12 to RPi6 and gives it away for free (ad supported). Everyone still prefers Linux.

Global sales of RPi6 are less than Tesla Cybertruck, prompting many internet memes. RPi and Tesla share prices tank, resulting in even more memes. Elon Musk takes to Xitter to announce he is buying RPi with 'funding secured'. This time, nobody takes him seriously and more memes ensue.

Microsoft loses billions on its investment and sells RPi to Eben Upton for the price of a small cottage on the Isle of Wight.

[Jason Bloomberg]

Re: What happened next

Everyone still prefers Linux.

Not everyone as evidenced by the community which has worked hard to put Windows on a Pi, the people who keep asking how to install Windows on a Pi.

Raspberry Pi have partnered with Microsoft, even hyped "Windows on a Pi" when it was merely Microsoft IoT crap. I remain surprised they haven't partnered with Microsoft to get a Windows on ARM desktop experience officially supported.

After the IPO it may actually happen. Some won't be happy. Others will be.

[John Brown (no body)]

"We want to be ready when the markets are ready.

Yes, but when are the "markets ready"?

As I understand the workings of "the market", they will be ready when the price is low with a chance of rising. Raspberry Pi Ltd will be ready when the price is as high as they can get it. Who will blink first? :-)

[streaky]

Obviously..

As a Brit, who owns bits of lots of companies, ignoring the utter nonsense above - I'd strongly advise against an IPO on the FTSE given neither FTSE nor either of the two major political parties are willing to fix the FTSE, go NYSE instead.

Take the advice of CEOs who have floated on the FTSE and have learned hard lessons. There's plenty of them around.

[CowHorseFrog]

Re: Obviously..

good advice yeh because we all know ceos would never lie.

[streaky]

Re: Obviously..

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/06/01/xavier-rolet-calls-next-government-save-lse-stock-market/