Raspberry Pi and
Sharks CoveWhy They Aren’t Competitors
or Rivals
Sharks CoveLogo
Coming…uh…
Soon
Microsoft recently released the Sharks Cove development board.
Almost instantly people started calling it a Raspberry Pi alternative/competitor
CHALLENGES
“LOOK OUT”
SIMILAR
ALTERNATIVE
RIVAL
A few people sensed something wrong with the comparison
WTF?
So how similar/different are they?
Ok, both are green boards with electronic-y stuff on them
That’s about where the similarities end
Size
56 x 85 mm 102 x 152 mm
The Sharks Cove is
3.2 times bigger
Processor
1 core 700 MHz 4 core 1.33 GHz
The Cove is almost
2xfaster
RAM
512 MB SDRAM 1GB DDR3
The Cove has
TWICEas much memory
(and it’s faster)
GPIO
17 GPIO pins*SPI and I2C
UART
? GPIO pinsSPI and I2C
UART
* The Model B+ has 26
We could go through all ofthe hardware differences
But what are the REAL reasons these two aren’t competing?
First of all, because Microsoft said so...
“Sharks Cove is a development board that you
can use to develop hardware and drivers for
Windows and Android.”
“The primary target usage of the Sharks Cove
board is for development of subsystems for
Intel® Atom™ processors based Tablets and
Mobile devices”
Drivers, Tablets and Mobile, OH MY!
Let’s compare that to the Raspberry Pi
“We want to see it being used by KIDS all over
the world to learn how computers work, how to manipulate the electronic world around
them, and how to program.”
The Raspberry Pi has a different purpose. And therefore a different market.
And it’s plain as day to see
Oh, and let’s not forget the price
$35 vs $300
One is an expensive platform development tool
meant for designingWindows and Android-based devices
with a non-existent community
The other is an affordable learning platform with a thriving worldwide
community aimed at teaching kids programming and electronics.
So can we please stop pretending that this is some sort of
development board matchup
Because it isn’t