Slashdot Mirror
Ubuntu Edge Smartphone Funding Trends Low
alphadogg writes "The first heady rush of support for Canonical's crowd-funded Ubuntu Edge smartphone appears to have tapered off, as donations for the eye-catching device have slowed substantially over the past several days. The project sits just above the $7 million mark at the time of this writing – a large sum by the standards of crowd-funded projects, to be sure, but the $32 million goal is still a long way off. The Edge is slightly, but measurably, behind schedule – by about $600,000, according to a tracking graph made by Canonical's Gustavo Niemeyer. However, there's speculation that wealthy Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth might contribute some of his personal fortune to the project." The campaign has already broken records with its spectacular first few days. I hope that Shuttleworth does kick in to make production feasible, because the idea and the design are impressive — but I'm leery of spending quite so much on any phone.
Shuttle worth has already said that he will not buy up unsold units, as that defeats the idea of crowd sourcing. Some of his ideas will make it into mainstream phones in a few years. BTW I bought 2.
Strictly looking at the ratio of raised : goal doesn't tell the whole story for each of the past 3-days they've only earned 200k. If that trend continues (and imo it's more likely they will tail off further) they'll be ~12 million by the end of the campaign.