I bet it is because, as the article says, that board was developed together with TI.

TI is trying to get hold of this market for some time... beagle, launchpad, etc. heck, i even got my beagle bone and a few launchpads for free from them.

I think IT having those boards and making them cheap, is like Microsoft not caring about pirated windows outside of the US in the 90s. It creates the ecosystem with 'users' who drives large volume sales later?