What it shows is just one thing: that having a 'call for pricing' blurb on your website, which is pretty much the norm for anything beyond the most trivial industrial automation hardware is a showstopper for many people. They just want to solve their problem, preferably today but tomorrow will do. Not go through the endless filters-of-revenue-extraction that the regular industry purchase trajectory will subject you to.
Exactly the same thing happened in the 80's with personal computers. Suddenly you didn't need to wait for the accounting department to write their purchase order after 'their' sales department had - reluctantly - come to an agreement with 'your' bean counters about what the budget was and how you were going to have to do with less of what you needed but more than what they really would have liked to give you.
A RasPi fits within any discretionary spending budget, there likely isn't even a write-off on them, it's just booked as costs in the year it is expended. And associated bits and bobs for sensors and actuators will be bolted on as needed.
In the end it may not be the best or the cheapest solution but "now" beats "someday" in many industries. I personally see this as exactly the reason why Brompton is the breakout success that it is: they show adaptability rather than to play by the book.
Exactly the same thing happened in the 80's with personal computers. Suddenly you didn't need to wait for the accounting department to write their purchase order after 'their' sales department had - reluctantly - come to an agreement with 'your' bean counters about what the budget was and how you were going to have to do with less of what you needed but more than what they really would have liked to give you.
A RasPi fits within any discretionary spending budget, there likely isn't even a write-off on them, it's just booked as costs in the year it is expended. And associated bits and bobs for sensors and actuators will be bolted on as needed.
In the end it may not be the best or the cheapest solution but "now" beats "someday" in many industries. I personally see this as exactly the reason why Brompton is the breakout success that it is: they show adaptability rather than to play by the book.