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Microsoft’s Raspberry Pi Will Cost $300
I presume that you have heard of Raspberry Pi. A $35 microcomputer that has revolutionized the low cost computing and has cult following among hardware hobbyist and do-it-yourself enthusiasts. Several other followed in the footsteps of Raspberry Pi to provide low cost micro computers, Arduino is one of the successful examples.
Microsoft has decided to enter the world of “System on Chip” and to come up with its “own Raspberry Pi”. Teamed up with Intel and CircuitCo, Microsoft will be launching a micro computer named “Sharks Cove“.
Sharks Cove boasts of Intel Atom Z3735G, a quad-core chip with speeds up to 1.83GHz, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of flash storage and a MicroSD slot among many other things. You can read the full specifications here. The main aim of Shark Cove is to provide a platform to develop hardware and drivers for Windows and Android.
Everything sounds fine till it comes to price. Sharks Cove will cost $299 with a Windows 8.1 license. While Arduino costs around $55 and Raspberry Pi $35, I don’t think there will be many buyers for such a high price in a domain which is dominated by low cost Linux based devices. What do you think?