Intel to drop Galileo, Edison and Joule development boards

Intel apparently abandons its attempts to take on the Raspberry Pi directly

Intel is reportedly scrapping its Galileo, Joule and Edison computing modules.

That's according to ZDNet, which obtained documentation revealing the chipmaker's plans to discontinue the three products at the end of 2017. Developers and product makers will have until 16 September to place orders for the Galileo, Joule and Edison boards, with Intel to stop shipping the units after 16 December. Any orders placed from now cannot be cancelled or refunded.

Intel's abandonning of its Arduino-certified Galileo development board, which launched back in October 2013, will not come as much of a surprise, with Microsoft having dropped support for the platform in its Windows 10 IoT Core product in 2015.

Intel launched the Edison platform the following year, as an SD card-sized PC to power Internet of Things (IoT) and wearable devices. The chip, which Intel touted as a 'Pentium class PC', runs Linux, and despite its size, has built-in WiFi and Bluetooth modules and can connect to its own app store.

Meanwhile, Joule launched just last year and took aim at the robotics market. The tiny computer packs a quad-core 64-bit Intel Atom processor, up to 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM and 16GB of eMMC storage, and is capable of 4K video display.

It appears that Intel is still planning on taking the fight to the Raspberry Pi, though, as its Minnowboard 3 board does not appear in the documentation. Intel's Curie chip, destined for wearables, also appears to have survived.

However, ZDNet notes that, as well as its the Galileo, Edison and Joule platforms, Intel is also discontinuing its Recon Jet smart glasses products, including the Recon Jet Pro Plus eyewear for enterprise, the Recon Jet Pro and Recon Jet.

Intel told C omputing it would not be commenting further on the matter.

In April Intel scrapped its Intel Developer Forum and cancelled the event planned for August this year as a result of the continuing slowdown in the PC market and a decline in attendees to the event.