Just to preface this we've deployed hundreds of the RB100 and RB500 series boards, and have been using mikrotik for years.
This abrupt change in footprint has left us wondering if we should continue to use mikrotik or switch to a platform that won't change at the drop of a hat.
The new boards are good, but the fact is now we have to go out and replace existing infrastructure and redesign our enclosures to support these new boards is really a pain in the ass. What would have taken a relatively short period of time to change out a board if it failed, now takes hours to replace the enclosure, and redo all the LMR. Some instances where we've used ARC panels with 133 boards for a small "repeater" is now impossible because a RB433 will not fit in the ARC enclosure. So we have to scrap that design all together and completely replace it...
One suggestion... Next time put yourselves in the position of your customers who have hundreds of these devices deployed. Do we really want to go out and have to redesign an entire solution to conform to your new standards? Or maybe.. ask those on the forums, you have an outlet right here!! Why not talk to some of your customers and say.. hey this is the direction we're thinking of going, do you see any problems with this?
I'm a little pissed off right now because I've had numerous 500/100 boards fail recently we've gone through our inventory and no supplier has any replacements...
So now I need to find a board similar to the 500's that will run RouterOS, start developing plans to redesign sites using the 500/100 boards, or bite the bullet and start deploying a different solution..
It would also be nice to see support for Intel's XScale architecture because there are products available already that have similar dimensions to the 500 series and support up to 4 miniPCI cards.. But I'm sure that would impact sales of the Routerboards you currently produce...