Framework's CEO on the RAM crisis and creating a "MacBook Pro for Linux users"

As a smaller independent PC maker, you’d expect Framework to be subject to some of the same problems. But at least according to Patel, the shortage has been difficult, but not existential. “We’re in an environment now where everyone’s got to pay,” Patel told Ars. “No one’s getting preferential pricing, really. But now we’re operating at a scale five years in where we can go directly to the module makers, the distributors, and even all the way to Micron… and get allocation. If I had started Framework a few years later, actually, it may be the case that we’d be boxed out entirely. But we have enough established history, we’re doing enough volume that we’re able to go and get that supply.” Though buyers may be reassured that Framework isn’t in danger of being driven out of business by RAM and storage prices, the company is still passing many of those increases on to its users by necessity. Framework has been changing its prices on a near-monthly basis since late last year, and that may continue for the foreseeable future. “Every month we take in our latest cost data, we look at our inventory position, we basically take a weighted average of the new memory purchases we’re making that we’re bringing into inventory and the current inventory that we have that may have been at different historical prices, and then take that weighted average to set the new pricing,” Patel told Ars. “If pricing only changed by a few percent, we’ll just absorb it and keep the price stable to avoid having to change everything. But once it passes some threshold, then we’ll go and update that pricing.” Although price increases may be a necessary evil for now, Patel at least wants users to feel like they understand why they’re going up. “We update our blog posts. We do social media messaging to make sure that people know that we did update that price and why we updated it,” Patel told Ars. “Our philosophy is, let’s do everything we can to make memory and storage available so people can still buy and build their computers. And then let’s be transparent about what’s driving the pricing behind it.”