JKR

“We would like nothing more than some company in China to make a million of these. It would be perfect, we would achieve our goal, which is ubiquitous presence of cheap computers.”

That’s Eben Upton talking about his ‘$25 dollar credit card sized computer’. It might not win any awards for beauty, but it’s a design interesting for going against the norms. Not only does Raspberry Pi (the not for profit foundation behind the computer) actively want to be copied by the Chinese, they also have a design whose back to basics approach makes ‘less is more’ Apple look like an overindulged Rococo fantasy of over design. In a world where content becomes ever cheaper (and many expect it to be free), we are paradoxically wanting to pay more and more for the delivery technology. If you don’t think your iPad is swanky enough on its own merits, then you might be inclined to clad it in a Louis Vuitton casing. Clearly the $25 computer goes in the opposite direction. Most importantly they have a ‘brand mission’ which is all about us and not about them; the idea (described as ‘almost nationalist’) is to help kids learn how computers work, the better to tackle the issue of a scarcity of engineering graduates in the UK. To this end, in the foundations words:

“There isn’t much any small group of people can do to address problems like an inadequate school curriculum or the end of a financial bubble. But we felt that we could try to do something about the situation where computers had become so expensive and arcane that programming experimentation on them had to be forbidden by parents; and to find a platform that, like those old home computers, could boot into a programming environment.”

All in all, today’s post is a counter-weight to yesterday’s ruminations on maximalism – this is all about being pared down to the bone.

Like all good ideas, this one has some other bounces beyond a desire to educate – notably in developing world scenarios, where processing power at a fraction of the typical costs is obviously very attractive. All you need is a TV monitor to plug into and the little bugger can run intensive games like Quake. Or, you know, make the world a better place – notably making access to the Internet possible without spending a few hundred pounds on a computer. It calls to mind the wind up radio in spirit – making something of huge benefit more widely accessible, as a mission rather than as a business plan. Not that such very cheap technology would be unattractive to the world of marketing and brand activity.

At one of our recent Platform events, Simon Gulliford put forward one of his ‘undeniable truths’ for marketing:

“In the long term price goes down. If we accept the reality of free markets, then we have to accept the reality that prices go down in the long run (house prices in London being the exception!). The erosion of margins force us to increase efficiency.”

Simon illustrated his point with the relative decline in TV prices, as the product just gets better. Raspberry Pi offer an accelerated version of this principle, and all for a good cause.

And as Upton explains at this post’s opening, if he gets ripped off, that just helps his mission – a win-win design strategy. Is this the British design of the year already?

The quotes here were taken from EDN news. Thanks to Dave Birss of Additive for the tip off. Raspberry Pi has a FAQ page here.