System76 will have a distribution center in Europe. The company confirms this in an interview with Tweakers. The manufacturer hopes to start delivering its Launch keyboards from Europe soon. Other products may follow later.
The company will initially start supplying its mechanical Launch open source keyboard from its European distribution center, as the company says it is relatively easy to do. “Laptops and desktops have a lot of restrictions and the costs are higher, so we will start with our Launch keyboard and sell it from a European distribution center, so that the shipping costs and taxes for that market are lower,” said System76 principal engineer Jeremy Soller to Tweakers.
System76 currently already supplies products in Europe, but does so from its distribution centers in the US, which involves high shipping and import costs. It is not yet known when System76 will start sales from Europe exactly, but Soller tells Tweakers that that will hopefully happen ‘in the coming months’. “It happens very quickly, once you have the PCB design. And we are currently working on the changes for the Launch PCB for the ISO versions. That will come out in the coming months. We are now also looking around for storage space where this distribution center would be set up. We are thinking, for example, of the Netherlands.”
For the European market, System76 also comes with a new variant of its Launch keyboard, which has an ISO format. The manufacturer tells Tweakers that it also expects to make the ANSI version available in Europe. The company is currently also working on a smaller and cheaper version, the Launch Lite, System76 confirms to Tweakers. The Launch Lite will have a smaller 65% layout with no function keys and will not have an integrated USB 3.2 hub, unlike the current Launch.
In time, System76 also wants to sell its Linux laptops and desktops from the European distribution center, but it is not yet known when that should happen. “Our laptops are already CE marked; the remaining issues with laptops are mainly related to the keyboard layout. We will probably wait for our custom models. For our Thelio desktops, we are currently working on the CE certifications and other things that we have to do for the European market, but that’s a lot more complicated than a peripheral like a keyboard, with a single circuit board.”
System76 is a Colorado hardware and software company. The company sells laptops and desktops, among other things, and develops its own Linux distribution, Pop_OS. Currently, the company only supplies from the US, but in the long term the company must also sell products directly in Europe, which should reduce shipping and import costs. Tweakers published Wednesday’s full interview with Jeremy Soller, which discusses the Linux distribution Pop_OS, the Cosmic desktop environment and the company’s upcoming self-designed laptops, among other things.
Tags: System76 distribution center Europe working keyboard Computer News
