If you’ve been eyeing up one of PINE64‘s Linux-friendly single-board computers, phones or tablets, now would be a good time to buy one.
The open-hardware company has announced it will not be “producing more Linux devices” for the time being, and expects its existing stock of certain devices, including the PineNote and PineTab 2, to sell out in the next three months.
After that, there won’t be more until.
Why’s the company pulling the plug on production? One guess: RAMaggeddon. The AI infrastructure boom continues apace, and demand for memory and storage chips has reduced supply and driven up costs – for OEMs and for consumers.
If the price of even modest tech – £290 Raspberry Pi 5, anyone? – has made you wince of late, you’ll understand why a small, cult hardware company like PINE64 feels it can’t stay competitive.
After all, PINE64’s entire development model rests on it making cheap, low-margin hardware for the open-source community to create software for. Part of how it keeps its costs low is by using components in ready supply – pre-AI boom, RAM was.
PINE64 could do what Raspberry Pi has, and increased its prices to offset sky-high RAM and storage costs, or launched lower-spec’d versions. Both would be an unpalatable pitch since it makes modest, hobbyist-grade hardware where cost is the entire USP.
In a post to its Mastodon account the company added: “All in all it’s a bit bleak for the Linux devices”.
But it’s not all doom and gloom.
As soon as component prices return to pre-boom levels – though market watchers and OEMs think this may never happen – production would be, presumably, viable.
PINE64 has said it will still be making its microcontroller-based devices, like the $60 PineVoice smart speaker, PineBuds earphones, Pinecil soldering iron and its upcoming PineTime Pro smartwatch. Those are not (directly) affected by the component shortage.
In fact, the company says we can expect “more exciting devices” in its MCU line to come – something to look forward to.
Let’s just hope data centers don’t develop an appetite for 16MiB flash chips or 32MiB pSRAM modules, eh!