Today the Raspberry Pi foundation has announced a retail availability of the Raspberry Pi 2, a new faster Pi that has 6x the performance of the old device, double the memory with an ARMv7 processor. Priced at £30 the board is going to be great for enthusiasts. For my point of view the best news is that the new Pi is that it will support Windows 10.

The Raspberry Pi foundation have been working with Microsoft to bring Windows 10 to the Raspberry Pi 2 via the Microsoft’s IoT (Internet of Things) program. Even better news is that Microsoft have announced that Windows 10 will be free for the Raspberry Pi 2 via the maker program, Microsoft say it will bring its development tools, services and ecosystem to the Raspberry Pi.

This opens up some fascinating possibilities for developers and enthusiasts to build projects based on Windows 10 with the low cost board which already has an amazing community around it. At the moment Microsoft are saying they will share more details in the “coming months” and in the mean time you can register at Microsoft’s IoT site.

Details from Microsoft:

Today the Raspberry Pi Foundation announced the retail availability of their new board, the Raspberry Pi 2. We’re excited to join the Foundation in also announcing that Windows 10 will support Raspberry Pi 2, which will be free for the Maker community through the Windows Developer Program for IoT later this year.

Recently Terry Myerson took the opportunity to share more details about Windows 10, which will usher in the new generation of Windows. Windows 10 is the first step toward an era of more personal computing. This vision guided our efforts to reimagine Windows for a world that is more mobile, natural and grounded in trust. Windows 10 will inspire and support a broad range of devices – from PCs, tablets and 2-in-1s to phones to Xbox and the Internet of Things.

We see the Maker community as an amazing source of innovation for smart, connected devices that represent the very foundation of the next wave of computing, and we’re excited to be a part of this community. Last year we took an important step in embracing the Maker movement by creating the Windows Developer Program for IoT and delivering Windows for the Intel Galileo board. We are taking the next step by bringing Microsoft’s leading development tools, services, and ecosystem to the Raspberry Pi community for free through our Windows Developer Program for IoT.

Raspberry Pi has quickly become one of the Maker community’s favorite platforms because their highly-capable, low-cost boards and compute modules enable developers to bring their vison to life. Raspberry Pi 2 is a surprisingly powerful device that opens up the world of computing and programing to a huge range of people and skill levels.

We are excited about our work with the Raspberry Pi Foundation and to share that Windows 10 will support Raspberry Pi 2. We will be sharing more details about our Windows 10 plans for IoT in the coming months. I encourage you to register for our developer program on the Windows Developer Program for IoT site to get the latest information on our Maker efforts.