Open source hardware business booms: 13 companies making $1M+

Here's Limor "Adafruit" Friend and Make editor Phil Torrone presenting a quick Ignite talk on the growth of open-source hardware businesses, including the remarkable revelation that there are 13 companies turning over $1 million or more per year making hardware that anyone can copy and improve upon. Many are based on the Arduino, but the biggest (by an order of magnitude), SparkFun, is a kind of toolsmith that makes bits and pieces to plug into your other projects.

I saw Limor and Phil give this presentation earlier this month at FOO East in Cambridge Mass and haven't been able to to get it out of my head -- so glad that someone got it on video!

13 Open Source Hardware Companies Making $1 Million or More (video)

PDF of the slides (via /.)

Previously:

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: Business • Gadgets

More at Boing Boing

Ants and Stars: Bruce Sterling and Jasmina Tesanovic visit the Sardinia Radio Telescope in Italy

The Snowden Principle

Anonymous

When is someone going to do an open source diabetic machine with the corresponding strips? That shit is expensive!
DrPretto

Thats GREAT news. I will gladly buy OPEN SOURCE HARDWARE. They just need to start making products like PCs, DVD players, TVs, Home Theaters, Cellphones, Vehicles, etc…
I want everything Open Source.
GOODBYE SOC INDUSTRY products.
Patrick Austin

If worldwide consumer hardware spending is $600B, they have managed to capture at least .002% of the market. Total world domination is so close I can taste it! :)
dculberson

Sparkfun is awesome; they deserve their success. It’s clear they’re knowledgeable and passionate about what they do, and it seems to me that they make a perfect example of “do what you love and the money will follow.”
AnthonyC

For reference, this is approximately the GDP of Tuvalu.

Let’s watch as they work their way up the list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29
bbbaldie

Open source, For The Win! :-D
Anonymous

Can someone just post the list? I’m endlessly frustrated by the myriad ways people are obfuscating simple information these days (It’s a 12-item list people, you do not need to make a five minute video or 20 page PDF about it when I could just read the simple bloody list in ten seconds.)