SparkFun was always the bigger, massive company that had more resources, people, equipment, space and more – they made a lot of electronics accessible to people and were (and are) one of the leading open-source hardware companies.
Thanks pt, I needed a pat on the back this morning. Someday folks will realize Adafruit surpassed SparkFun in size, resources, and revenue years ago and your rebel, underdog persona might be a little harder to maintain.
We’ll be watching SPARK X to see if ultimately this is what SparkFun becomes by competing with itself, or if this was this a distraction and a way to keep some cooks out of the kitchen.
Have fun with that. I'm going to go build something.
What was the point of this post? I think SparkX is a great idea, but there is exactly no point if you are just going to make digs at another company. Be Better...
I'm really not sure what to make of this blog post. Are you ragging on Adafruit? Their "news regurgitation" is the only coherent article I've found on this SparkX thing so far. And trust me. Many, many people are building things with Adafruit products every day. AND buying them at a good price. AND receiving support for them. This whole underdog, "Product 0" mentality means little to average consumers that need to buy usable components that work and are supported by a reputable company.
From what I can tell, based on the past few months of "new products" posts, the remaining entity that is Sparkfun is riding it's current catalog of products and no long designing new, innovative boards. Now there's this SparkX thing which seems to be reminiscent of a garage business selling products with no support, yet they are distributed through the Sparkfun storefront. It all seems really sloppy and I'd love some clarification on what's going on. If there's some kind of internal split between personnel then maybe you should sell your "SparkX" products under new branding and a new LLC instead of siphoning off of the Sparkfun name and confusing customers.
With Adafruit you have competition. Competition is healthy and drives innovation in products and services but also benefits suppliers, resellers and end users. Maybe it's time to shake up Sparkfun in order to get things moving again. And sign up some new resellers. Your CBDO is stifling your business growth.
I dunno, Adafruit does a pretty good job of providing clean support for their products, and they generally do a good job of making sure stuff is going to work and that most of the useful pins are broken out on boards. One thing is for sure, on the software and library side, Adafruit is FAR ahead of anybody else. Don't get me wrong, Sparkfun always has a place at my bench, but sometimes I look at a product and wonder why they didn't take it just that little tiny bit further.
oof. a little bitter towards Ladyada, eh?