Intel Kills Arduino 101 Family Of Raspberry Pi Rivaling DIY Tinker Boards

Intel has always been an interesting company to watch, but lately, we've been looking at how it's adjusting focus to better handle the current competitive landscape. On the CPU side, the fact that AMD is more competitive than ever has been well-documented, both on the desktop side and in the enterprise. Intel has already reduced its focus in some key places, such as wearables. In one example of readjusted focus, the company is now targeting augmented reality as the next big thing it can play a part in.

But we're not through with the deaths yet, as today we learn of yet another in the Intel product family: Arduino 101. This DIY tinker board was first revealed a couple of years ago, and with a price of $30, it squarely targeted the likes of Raspberry Pi. If there was a battle going on, though, we now know which one came out the victor. The announcement of Arduino 101's death came via a discontinuation notice from Intel [PDF].

One of the most interesting aspects of the Arduino 101 is that it featured Intel's own Curie SoC, which was first made available by itself in Q1 of last year. With the plug being pulled on the Arduino 101, it seems likely at this point that we might as well forget about Curie, too.

The most unfortunate thing about this move is that with Arduino 101, Intel spoke to the maker community, giving them a feature-packed option that would let them build some incredible things. That vision is no more, much to ARM's glee, we're sure.