[foxylad]

You can buy ESP8266 boards with wifi built in for less than $3, so wifi doesn't justify the price tag. The Edison is certainly a lot more more powerful, but most IOT applications simply don't need that power. And if you do, Raspberry Pi Zero is still far cheaper.

But this actually proves your larger point that Intel just aren't that interested. If they were, they would sell Edison at a loss for $5, which would spawn huge community support around them.

Intel they are suffering the classic innovator's dilemma, where competitors grab the low-end with products so cheap that no-one cares about their inferiority. The competitors then slowly improve their products (see the ESP32) and gobble up most of the market. Inel will rule the high end for a while yet, but I think they recognise they have already lost the low end.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma

[Nexxxeh]

I'm assuming you already know, but in case you don't, there's now the Pi Zero W. Less than £10, but it's a Pi Zero with wifi (802.11n) and Bluetooth (4.1) with integrated antenna.

[pjmlp]

Even better the ESP32.

It's 512 KB are more than enough for most applications.

After all it was enough for having MS-DOS, Turbo Pascal development environment back in the day, just as example.