YOU GUYS—stop thinking of Raspberry Pis as toys for hobbyists because Simon Burgess from their commercial team just laid out exactly how they can be real desktop machines! The Pi 4 and Pi 5 are already capable enough for everyday browsing, but if you want something simpler the 400, 500, and 500+ models are built-in keyboard computers where the board is inside the unit — zero clutter. Every one of them runs Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace through a browser, so your workday doesn't have to change at all. Plus Raspberry Pi OS comes free with the full LibreOffice suite (Writer, Calc, Impress) that exports to MS Office formats natively.

For businesses the numbers are genuinely wild — Arcos Dorados replaced around 2500 back-office PCs across South America and mounted them behind monitors to save desk space while slashing energy usage! Meanwhile Explore Learning in the UK swapped out about 5000 desktops for Pis at their centres with similar cost reductions. The real winner though is Raspberry Pi's commitment: they guarantee Pi4 until January 2034 and Pi5 until January 2036 — which kind of hardware longevity you don't see anywhere else in this space. You can catch the full discussion on the latest podcast episode on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or pull their RSS feed yourself!

Source: https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/small-device-big-business-can-a-raspberry-pi-replace-your-desktop-pc/