Maker Faire Bay Area 2015: Arduino.cc has just announced a series of major changes to both the branding and manufacturing of its popular AVR-based development boards. In a partnership with Adafruit, Arduino.cc is launching a new global sister brand to the Arduino called "Genuino" (Translating to Genuine in Italian). The Genuino brand will encompass all of the official Arduino boards such as the Yun, Uno, Leonardo, etc, and will be manufactured at Adafruit's Manhattan facility in New York. This is a major move for Arduino.cc as the company has always taken pride in manufacturing its boards in Italy where Arduino was founded. 

In a statement at the Bay Area Maker Faire 2015, Adafruit founder, Limor "Ladyada" Fried" said the following about the partnership:

“Adafruit and Arduino.cc have been working together on open-source software and hardware for almost 10 years in a variety of ways, this is expanded partnership and manufacturing is part of our collective goal to make the world a better place through the sharing of ideas, code and hardware with our communities –

We’re currently manufacturing the Arduino  Gemma with Arduino.cc right here in New York City at the Adafruit factory, it instantly became a top seller and we’re looking forward to bringing our manufacturing expertise and processes to start shipping Arduinos right here from the USA as soon as possible!”

These changes come amidst a large legal battle with the company who use to manufacture the official Arduino boards who recently claimed ownership of the brand and began producing its own line of boards using and Arduino-branded website. The controversy quickly spread into retail channels as longtime distributors who wanted to support Arduino.cc were not able to purchase any boards from the .cc group due to being tricked into signing an exclusivity deal that falsely appeared to support the original founding group. 

(Image Courtesy MakingSociety)

This new partnership with Adafruit will allow the Arduino.cc organization to resume production of "Genuine" Arduino's and allow them to once again sell their boards to retailers in markets where the Arduino brand ownership is still being decided in courts of law. Adruino.cc said that the new Genuino brand will retain the familiar teal and white solder mask, and the board suffix's will remain the same. This is exciting news because the legal controversy over the last several months has threatened to delay the launch of the new Arduino Zero, but with this new manufacturing partnership, and the new brand, all seems to be on schedule for a June TH launch of the Zero. Arduino.cc founder, Massimo Banzi, also announced a new product called the Modulino. It is the first "Arduino" board designed and produced in India. 

(Video Courtesy Makezine)

So what does this mean for the maker community? Other than the supply chain being restored and new "official" Arduinos returning to the supply chain, everything should continue as per normal. The Uno will remain a staple until the Zero takes a foothold, and Chinese manufacturers will continue to knock off the Arduino brand while undercutting the price by 75% or more. The biggest point in this announcement is that there are now official "Arduinos" being produced in the USA! However, I do hope that one day official Arduino-branded boards that support Arduino.cc are once again produced in their homeland, and that Massimo Banzi regains control of the brand he has worked so hard to build over the last decade. 

Update: In a new blog post, Ladayada posted a photo that shows a box containing the Atmega 328 processors that will become the first 10,000 Genuino-branded products! 

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