Xiaofan Chen gmail.com> writes: > > Microchip rationale, somewhat confirmed by the class attendance, is that > > it does not make sense to make the effort to support an operating system > > for a potential incremental audience of just 1% ? > TI explained this to me when I tried to buy their DSC chips in low volume for a commercial project. It was their 80/20 rule. You can make 80% of the sales with just 20% of the customers. Also, 20% of your sales can consume 80% of your support resources. Basically, I fell into the low volume/high support dead zone. They could spend the same support resources and sell 500K chips/yr to another company or 500 chips/yr to me. Until Microchip is convinced that some high volume customers are being lost due to lack of Linux support, there is no real incentive for them. Overall they are one of the best companies for supporting low volume and hobbyist design-ins. If all they really wanted was high volume, they would move their FAEs from writing application notes to working one-on-one with anyone with an application of more than 50K chips/yr. Parts would only be available in reels and evaluation quantities would be evaluated for opportunity before you could get less than a reel. Steve -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist