Raspberry Pi foundation wants to focus more on companies with partner program

The Raspberry Pi organization wants to focus more on companies that use the minicomputers. The foundation has set up a special section on the website for this purpose and is starting a partner program.

According to Roger Thornton of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, industrial partners are increasingly important customers to the foundation. In the past year, 44 percent of the total sales of the minicomputer would come from that group, he writes in a blog post. In total, more than 35 million Pi’s would have been sold. According to Thornton, many older versions of the Pi are still being sold, which, according to Thornton, are mainly used for embedded systems in the business world. “There, changing to the latest model is not practical,” he says.

The organization therefore wants to do more for those companies. It has therefore set up a special section on the website where commercial parties can find more information about Pi’s, such as technical documentation, but also support. Datasheets and compliance documents can also be found on that section.

In addition, the organization wants to make it more practical to use Raspberry Pi’s in companies by supporting them for the longer term. Raspberry Pi Trading guarantees that all products will continue to exist until at least 2026. Earlier, the foundation set up the Integrator program, which was used to better help companies to meet compliance requirements.

The organization has also set up a new partner program. In addition, sellers can register as an Approved Design Partner. These are companies that, for example, make hardware that is compatible with the Raspberry Pi, or that supply systems in which a Pi is integrated. The status label is a kind of quality mark. Companies with the Approved Design Partner status can also receive technical support from the foundation.