如果“市场突破”和发展板价格之间的关系很简单，每个工程师将很快得出结论，工具应该免费分发。算术上勿用置疑，但实际上截然不同。人们的天性：免费的东西，“认知价格”也减到零。在我的实际经验中，免费的开发板不可信任，大部分被放在架子上堆满了灰尘。
所以，分发开发板的缺点，我们怎样定义和证明任意的最低价格是正当的呢？
不必说，这是MICroChip频繁讨论的主题。我们设计团队提出一个新产品的频率与新开发板需求的频率一样。大多数嵌入式控制器厂商似乎挣扎在同样问题的一个或另一个点，有时候伴随着可笑的结果。实际上，他们竭尽全力的降低工具价格，但仍要向合理的元器件数量、板子大小和功能妥协。例如，结果导致板子很小，以致于变得很难操作。或者，能力减少到只能完成LED闪烁的简单功能。这种现象发生时，我们很快退回到感知到“零价格”的僵局中。
在开发板不得不承受最少有效性/有用性的标准条件下，价格能有多低呢？
迄今为止，我见过最能表达的回答是鉴别板子 “经济支撑”的最低水平作为标准。换句话说，当板子以充足支付两件事的利润被卖时，必须提供所需的功能。除需要能够支付除材料账单以外，这两件事是：初始开发板的花销和将来维持。在大多数情况下，初始开发板花销确实被忽略。板子越成功，销量越大，对最终价格的影响越小。另一方面，将来维持的花销也常被忽视，但是这最后还是会被使用者发觉。一个新板子变得成功，销量增大，像回答技术问题、提供软件升级这样的支持板子的花销日益增加。如果这个花销不能通过合理的收入流达到平衡，很有可能生产板子的公司不久就降低服务，甚至淘汰板子。
使用者付的最终价格，他们也失去重新使用软件和硬件开发的能力，至少他们浪费时间学习更多的开发接口。必然的，给所有嵌入式控制工程师一个更好的判断工具价值的方法。如果价格太好以致于不真实，几乎与使用的元器件总价格不相等，三思而行。
英文原文：
Low-cost development boards: How low CAN you go?
If the relationship between market penetration (forgive me, my last job was in marketing) and the cost of the development boards is so simple (inverse proportionality?), every engineer worth their salt would quickly jump to the conclusion that such tools should be given away for free. Mathematically, there is no doubt about it—but the reality is quite different. Its human nature: when something is given for free, its perceived value is also reduced to zero. In my practical experience, free development boards are not trusted and most often left on the shelf to aCCumulate dust.
So, short of giving the development boards away, how can we define and justify any other arbitrary minimum price target?
Needless to say, this is a frequent topic of discussion at Microchip. It comes up almost as frequently as our design teams introduce a new product and, with it, the need for a new development board. Most embedded-control manufacturers seem to have struggled with the same question at one point or another, sometimes with comical results. In fact, in the desperate attempt to make the tool inexpensive they have sometimes compromised beyond what is reasonable on the component count, or the board size and functionality. The resulting demonstration boards, for example, are so small that they can become difficult to handle (Ive recently seen a lot of advertising for demonstration boards the size of a qUARTer, barely protruding from the tip of a USB connector). Or, the demonstration capabilities are reduced to blinking a single LED (Ive seen this way too often). When this happens, we can very quickly fall back to the perceived zero value impasse.
With the understanding that a development board has to withstand some minimum usefulness/usability criteria, how low can/should we go?
So far, the best way Ive found to express the answer is by using a criterion based on identifying the minimum level of economical sustainability for the board. In other words, the board must provide the required functionality while being sold at a price that incorporates sufficient margins for the company to be able to pay for two things, in addition to the bill of materials: the initial development costs and the future maintenance. The initial development costs can be safely ignored, in most cases. The more successful the board, the higher the volume it is produced in and, therefore, the lower the incidence on the final price. The second part, the cost of future maintenance, is ignored all too often, but with severe consequences ultimately felt by the user. As a new board becomes successful and the volume increases, the cost of supporting the board, answering technical questions, providing SOFtware updates and so forth, tends to increase over time. If this cost is not balanced by a reasonable stream of revenue, it is very likely that the company producing it will soon be tempted to drop support and/or kill the board altogether.
The user pays the ultimate price, as they lose the ability to re-use the software and hardware developed and/or, as a minimum, theyve wasted time learning/wrestling with one more development interface. As a corollary, this gives all embedded-control engineers a method for better judging a tools value. If the price is too good to be true—barely equal to (or below) the sum of the components used—think twice before spending any of your time on it!
英文原文地址： http://www.edn.com/blog/1200000320/post/250008825.html
来源： http://article.ednchina.com/Embeded/200707291049401.htm
本文关键字：开发 ARM单片机，单片机-工控设备 - ARM单片机
