Influence on the education system?

Raspberry Pi is not just about low-cost hardware, it’s also about Open Source and community engagement, so will this deployment have any impact on school curriculum? Will they change the approach schools have towards Open Source? Will it build a bridge between Open Source and schools?

Upton thinks its too early to say anything, “I think its very early days. It’s only really past 6-9 months things have been available in sufficient quantity that education systems can order them. We do see some schools at the moment, particularly private schools which have a little more freedom in terms of their engagement with the curriculum, buying Pis in quite a large numbers to give to their children. I think it will be a while before all schools, in particular conventional state schools, in the UK will adopt Pi in large numbers.”

Since private schools have more say in their own curriculum, the heavy adoption of Raspberry Pi will certainly have an impact on their curriculum. We can hope as as these devices become more popular in schools they will start to influence the approach towards Linux and Open Source.

What’s the next big thing?

Raspberry Pi design and hardware has remain same ever since it was launched. As Upton said that one of the reasons is that they want the hardware to have a long shelf-life. Unlike Apple or Samsung Raspberry Pi is not fighting to sell more units to make profits by obsolescence of hardware. However, when the time will come the board will get the much needed revision. Within its hardware design the Pi is evolving fast and is gaining more and more capabilities.

So what is the next big thing we can expect from the Pi? Upton said, “I think the next big thing from Raspberry Pi is improved desktop support. We are spending a lot of time, energy and money on improving the desktop user experience of Pi.”

Many users may not be aware but Raspberry Pi is a potential multimedia powerhouse. “We are committed to making Pi a great platform, particularly for multimedia. It has a fantastic chip BCM2835, which has a great fantastic multimedia accelerator.”

There are already a lot of people who are using Pi as XBMC (Xbox Media Center) or as a media center.

The foundation is investing resources in helping these community members and users, “So what we are trying to do is get some of that multimedia capabilities into the hands of people who are just doing desktop applications. With this in mind we are spending a lot of money in Wayland, the next generation compositing desktop protocol; we spent a lot of money on Gstreamer; webkit integration and a lot of these things to make the Pi a more attractive general purpose machine.”

There is a big future for Linux machines in particular ARM Linux machines in the developing world.

Upton said there are two reasons for doing this. One is developing world application, as he thinks there is a big future for Linux machines in particular ARM Linux machines in the developing world. Second reason is that he believes that this machine has to be good fun. There are things children will engage with so these devices should be able to play games games, able to do social networking or able to play videos.

“So we try to make the platform a more usable as a general purpose computer helps with our educational mission,” said Upton.

Focus on India, South America and Africa

Raspberry Pi is quite popular in the US and Europe, however, one of the USPs of the device is its price point. Which makes it a very attractive solution for the problems that BRIC countries are facing. There many people can’t afford computers due to cost (though India is also a software research and development hub of the world) and Raspberry Pi can enable children in these countries to get affordable access to computing. While Pi was not created for that purpose, it was created to solve the problem of the UK; it has grown much bigger.

So an obvious question was what’s the current market of Pi and what plans does the foundation have for developing countries

Upton said, “Right now North America is our largest market followed by Germany and UK in terms of monthly shipments. I think, until recently, UK still had the largest install base because we are very big in the UK from the very early on.”

“I think going forward we are putting a lot of efforts into how we can get to market in India,” said Upton.

They are working on how to market the device in South America, especially Brazil. Due to tariffs, the cost of delivering a Pi shoots up to $70-$80, which is almost double the cost. So the foundation is working on finding ways to not getting exposed to such tariffs and keep the cost low for children or customers.

“I think in the medium terms our attention is really turning to Africa in a big way. I think Africa has enormous opportunity for Linux; it has enormous opportunity for ARM Linux. And for Pi and other machines like Pi,” said Upton.