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Ubuntu Edge Draws Nearly $13M, But Falls Short of Indiegogo Goal
Nerval's Lobster writes "The crowdfunding campaign to build an Ubuntu-powered smartphone has fallen short of its ambitious goal. Canonical, which works with the open-source community to support Ubuntu worldwide, decided to fund its Ubuntu Edge smartphone via crowdfunding Website Indiegogo. The funding goal was set at $32 million, and at first it looked as if the project had enough momentum to actually succeed: within the first 24 hours of the project's July 22 launch, some $3.45 million had poured in. But that torrent of cash soon slowed to a trickle. In the end, the campaign managed to amass $12,809,906 by its August 21 closing. Nonetheless, Canonical did its best to put a brave face on the situation. 'While we passionately wanted to build the Edge to showcase Ubuntu on phones, the support and attention it received will still be a huge boost as other Ubuntu phones start to arrive in 2014,' the organization wrote in a posting. 'Thousands of you clearly want to own an Ubuntu phone and believe in our vision of convergence, and rest assured you won't have much longer to wait.'" Update: 08/22 16:14 GMT by T : Oops -- headline edited to reflect that the Edge was an Indiegogo project, rather than Kickstarter.
Using a crowd-funded campaign like this gives Canonical a very good idea about just how much interest there is in the phone essentially for free...and if they met that goal they'd be all the better.
No one trusts Canonical outside of the die-hard Ubuntu fanboys. Canonical forks everything due to their NIH syndrome. They released the buggiest, ugliest and most uselessly incoherent Desktop imaginable (Unity) and then sold their userbase to Amazon.
The Edge could be the greatest thing since sliced bread, I still wouldn't give them my money.
'Thousands of you clearly want to own an Ubuntu phone and believe in our vision of convergence, and rest assured you won't have much longer to wait
Huh? Well, they're not making one, because there isn't enough interest to make it worthwhile. Why would another company have different results?
I don't respond to AC's.
Whaaaaat there was one on Kickstarter too? Damn, if they wouldn't have had the other one on Indiegogo they might have got it funded.
I hate to say it but Ubuntu has missed the mobile boat. It would have been nice to have an open source alternate to Android and iOS. I use Android but I've got to say, it gives me the creeps the more I read about Google and how they are mining our data with seemingly no regard for their customers.
What are you smoking?
Smartphones will likely replace desktops when docked at some point.
The smartphone is severely limited in its interface, its power, its scope, its precision, and its visuals.
No. Smartphones are limited in their intended uses sure, but the hardware is very capable of general purpose work. Smartphones are increasing in power at a much faster rate than desktop and laptop machines.
PCs have no such limitations.
Wat.
There is still a desktop market, and always will be; don't let the naysayers clutching their toy phones tell you any differently.
Desktops are cheaper, but outside of very specialised applications, laptops are good enough for most uses. In fact, modern smartphones are good enough.
This is your only hope now that we've proved that betting the farm on a toy device is not a smart idea.
Nobody was betting the farm on this. It was just an idea. People probably said the same thing about personal computers (vs mainframes) back in the 70s/80s.
which is totally what she said
Except that it would have been both. I use my phone all day long to check personal and work email, slashdot, news (note what I did there), listen to music, watch the occasional TV show or YouTube video, etc. And when I am in the office, like now, why can't I just plug my phone into a big monitor and keyboard for an hour, and then unplug it again and go mobile?
The phone they tried to sell is EXACTLY what I want. Maybe because it is Canonical, or you had to pay a year in advance, or not enough people want these features, this device won't ever see the light of day.
Tons of storage, fast processor, mobile, completely desktop ready, Linux / Android: I am ready to buy a device that has these exact features now and I am perfectly fine with the price.
It wasn't googled, they searched internet in Bing. Sometimes representative enough companies turns into english verbs.
Come on, it wasn't Kickstarter. Indiegogo. There is a difference.
You never go straight retard.
A powerful phone, by the proposed specification, but just a phone.
It is hard to excite the masses when all you're offering is another black-cased smartphone, even if it does offer HDMI output.
I was totally with you up until you said KDE...
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
I would have plunked my money down, if they could produce a CDMA version of the phone for use on Verizon and Sprint.
Well then it's no wonder they missed the Kickstarter goal, everyone was pledging on the wrong website.
IMO, the goal was deliberately set too high to meet. Now all the money goes back to the donators.
Huge amounts of free advertising, hype generation and likely leverage in existing negotiations with hardware vendors, care of the interest $13m worth of donations the "chumps" who bought into it loaned to Indiegogo for a couple months.
Smart. Very smart.
You have to forgive Timmy. He's barely literate.
> No one trusts Canonical outside of the die-hard Ubuntu fanboys ..
Canonical has contributed Ubuntu into the community, for free, any criticism of their business strategy is therefore groundless ...
AccountKiller
A netbook isn't good enough for web browsing? The only reason I can't use a phone or tablet for 100% of my internet use, is that some youtube videos aren't allowed "on mobile" for some stupid reason.
I used a netbook as my primary development and home usage machine for several months, simply to squash my ego somewhat (before that I'd always gone for the most powerful machines I could). It was actually surprisingly usable. For doing more engineering oriented work I did need to remote into more powerful computers though, so now I have an ultrabook.
which is totally what she said
The Kickstarter price for one phone was about $700. If I want to get a phone with a Linux derivative, I can get the newest Nexus for $300. No matter what my free software convictions and Google paranoia are, they're not worth that much. Particularly for vaporware.
I think Canonical's mistake was limiting the campaign to a single month. I am sure there were a lot of people that wanted the phone but did not have the liquid cash to purchase one with only a month notice. If it was a three month campaign, I could see them reaching their goal.
People said the same thing about personal computers (vs mainframes) back in the 70s/80s.
FTFY
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
Considering that hasn't happened with laptops yet, I'd be very surprised to see it happen with phones, at least in the near future. Just like with laptops and desktops, just because you can mostly get the same performance in a much smaller form factor doesn't mean everyone's going to want to pay the premium for the smaller size.
Maybe if they hadn't played fast and loose with the desktop GUI and amazon searches they would have still been popular enough in FOSS circles to get something done. Not now. Bye canonical.
the key difference is laptops are big, heavy and unwieldy and nobody likes to lug them around for the sake of it. Since you are going to have a smartphone with you at all times either way, why not give it even more utility? Most people don't have elaborate needs that require full blown PC monster, but would love to have access to all their shit wherever they go. If the phone can provide that, great.
I've only used KS etc, rather than Indiegogo.
Does this money actually go to a project before it reaches the end-date? The details on the site don't really mention either way.
On KS projects, your donation is more of a pledge, which only goes through if the target is made by the end-date of the project.
The same thing was said about personal computers. Ken Olsen, CEO of DEC, said something to this effect in the early 1980's. Thing is, he was right for his time. Computers then were just high end gaming systems. They plugged into the TV, often the keyboard was lousy and the computer itself was under the keyboard. It was useless out of the box without another $50-$200 in accessories to be able to save data. The idea of a computing platform hadn't been invented yet, so an upgrade to a new machine from the same manufacturer meant buying all new software and parts (kind of like a game system). The promises of balancing the family budget, having an electronic encyclopedia, and automating your home were not realized due to tedious data entry, technological limitations, or devoting a $700 computer 24/7 to a single purpose.
Unlike 30 years ago, modern smartphones aren't hampered much by their technology. The main hampering is the equipment design and OS itself, which make productivity applications either limited in scope, or a royal pain to use. Ubuntu Edge sought to address these deficiencies by giving you a real OS with real applications using a real mouse and real keyboard on a real screen in addition to being a useful mobile tool as well. Others have tried and failed, Motorola with the Atrix, for example. I think that was a limit of technology and an inappropriate OS.
In some places it has. For instance, my mom is in a job that often requires her to work from home. So her company gave her a laptop that is secured and can access their network at her house. At work, she puts the laptop in a dock that is connected to a monitor: dual monitor workstation. When she goes home she takes the laptop with her to use at home if needed. It really is much more efficient and cheaper than giving her a desktop for work and a laptop for home use.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
100 W processor will always be faster than 10 W processor. So, no, phones will never replace desktops.
Even the 10W CPU is enough for me and the vast majority.
For me it was the requirement to have a PayPal account. I would have given them money almost any other way but I will never go back to PayPal.
*Indiegogo. Whatever.
Actually it does matter a great deal. A key difference is what happens to the money if the project is not funded to the goal level. On kickstarter if the project misses its goal, no money changes hands. On indiegogo campaigns can be set up as "Flexible Funding" and the hosts get whatever is pledged (minus 9% for fees).
From the Kickstarter page:
Why is Kickstarter funding all-or-nothing?
On Kickstarter, a project must reach its funding goal before time runs out or no money changes hands. Why? It protects everyone involved. This way, no one is expected to develop a project with an insufficient budget, which sucks. Remember you set your own funding goal, so aim to raise the minimum amount you'll need to create your vision. Projects can always raise more than their goal, and often do.
From the Indiegogo FAQ
What if I don't reach my funding goal?
If your campaign is set up as Flexible Funding, you will be able to keep the funds you raise, even if you don't meet your goal. If your campaign is set up as Fixed Funding, all contributions will be returned to your funders if you do not meet your goal. Flexible Funding campaigns that meet their goal are only charged 4% as our platform fee, whereas campaigns that do not meet their goal are charged 9%.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
Considering that hasn't happened with laptops yet, I'd be very surprised to see it happen with phones, at least in the near future. Just like with laptops and desktops, just because you can mostly get the same performance in a much smaller form factor doesn't mean everyone's going to want to pay the premium for the smaller size.
While it hasn't completely happened with laptops, it has to a great extent. At my office, most people get assigned laptops. 80% of the time, they are attached to a keyboard/mouse/monitor. The only people I know who buy desktops at home tend to be gamers or developers. Everyone else buys laptops. So no, they may never _completely_ replace desktops, but they might for the average user.
Good graphics cards are big. Most people don't need them, true, but PC gaming is still very much alive - Diablo 3 has sold about 15 million copies. That's about a half _billion_ dollars right there, for one game.
People have been predicting the death of the desktop for decades, whether due to consoles, laptops, mobiles, whatever. It's never going to happen while good graphics cards and processors need a lot of cooling, and therefore are big.
The only reason laptops haven't taken over from desktops is that you can't make a laptop do what a desktop does for a similar price, and in some cases not at all. Good luck getting similar performance from a phone.
Desktops are cheaper, but outside of very specialised applications, laptops are good enough for most uses. In fact, modern smartphones are good enough.
Desktops are not only cheaper, they are better. Games are not specialised applications.
Wow. You people are fucking deluded. Please stop letting big companies and the NSA fool you into believing this bullshit.
I'm sorry this comment sounds trollish, but anyone that ACTUALLY believes the garbage you just spewed is the actual troll.
The best thing about Ubuntu Edge is that the phone/PC GUI concept now has prior art.
The main proposed feature of Ubuntu Phone (the name of the OS under development) is to turn a fast quadcore phone with HDMI out and Bt into a Desktop PC when you plug it into a monitor/TV/projector. So you might get your wish, but it'll be for a PC that you can carry in your pocket and use as a standard Android phone the rest of the time
While I was not interested in the piece of bling that the Edge represented, I would pay for the finished OS for my next phone in maybe 6mos to a year.
"The Adobe Updater must update itself before it can check for updates. Would you like to update the Adobe Updater now?"
they searched the Web, not the internet.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
For about 1/10th the cost, one other FOSS phone was able to get off the ground. Actually, even though the main page says 66%, they reached their minimum goal months ago so the startup threshold is much lower than that.
Their initial market is EU-only, but I would still consider getting a FairPhone if only to have a mini-tablet with the most open hardware that's feasible at this point.
Good graphics cards are big. Most people don't need them, true, but PC gaming is still very much alive - Diablo 3 has sold about 15 million copies. That's about a half _billion_ dollars right there, for one game.
Sure, your converged phone won't replace a gaming rig for hardcore gamers, but not everyone games, and not everyone who does does so on the PC.
People have been predicting the death of the desktop for decades, whether due to consoles, laptops, mobiles, whatever. It's never going to happen while good graphics cards and processors need a lot of cooling, and therefore are big.
Who's talking about death of the desktop? Desktop is useful for some people. But again, not everyone games on the PC, strange as it may seem to you. With 16GB of ram on my laptop, I could easily do all my development work on my laptop, once attached to a bigger screen and keyboard.
The only reason laptops haven't taken over from desktops is that you can't make a laptop do what a desktop does for a similar price, and in some cases not at all. Good luck getting similar performance from a phone.
Newsflash: laptops HAVE taken over desktops, in the sense that more laptops are sold than desktops, by about a factor 2 in 2012 http://www.inquisitr.com/76157/tablets-to-overtake-desktop-sales-by-2015-laptops-will-still-reign/, and that's excluding netbooks. Why? because performance is good enough for most people. Because the price differential is not quite as big as it used to be, and is worth it for many people in exchange for the portability. Tablets and netbooks are each also moving a comparable number of units to desktops. Again, they're good enough for many uses for many people.
Give it another couple iternations in performance, storage and battery improvements, and phones will be good enough for most people too, and will just need a bigger screen and keyboard to be usable for running most desktop applications, except for high-GPU users like games, photoshop, etc.
I hadn't really thought about that. There's nothing that distinguishes a smartphone from a PC with a 4G Card. Still, I bet there's a patent submarining around somewhere waiting for us to dare try using a very small computer as something more than a consumption device.
"The Adobe Updater must update itself before it can check for updates. Would you like to update the Adobe Updater now?"
It's gotten to the point where it's almost odd for me to see a desktop now. At my office only a few people still have desktops because they're not up for a replacement yet. Those that are get a laptop. I've got a laptop now that sits docked most of the time, connected to my external mouse/keyboard and dual monitors. Same thing at home - my laptop replaced my desktop, but when it's time to do Real Work it gets connected to my external mouse/keyboard and dual monitors. Aside from serious gaming I don't see anyone buying desktops anymore, and I can't wait until the day when my phone can be docked just like my laptop and run real apps like Photoshop, Lightroom, and even a full browser rather than the mobile touch-friendly version.
Smartphones will likely replace desktops when docked at some point.
But just because a future smartphone will be able to power a desktop doesn't mean that the desktop will be "replaced" by the smartphone. Saying that is like pulling the engine out of a car and claiming that the engine "replaces" the car.
I guarantee that when you dock that smartphone, the GUI will automatically transition to desktop mode, to take advantage of the massively larger screen size and the presence of the mouse and keyboard. I'll bet that even 30 years from now the resulting desktop will bear a striking similarity to the desktops of today.
For serious content creation, we'll always need special-purpose hardware with the appropriate human-scale form factors. No smartphone with a 4 inch touch screen will ever allow me to efficiently develop large CAD drawings, efficiently edit complex multimedia content, or efficiently juggle 3 spreadsheets. That will always be true, even in the future when we can start docking our smartphones to power our desktops.
An earlier Slashdot post predicted this shortfall.
Not news.
No one is going to twist your arm and make you have a smartphone that can double as a PC. It's just something else that quadcore computer with a gig or two memory in you pocket could already be doing. In a couple of years these could be the $100 prepaid phone that you can buy at the supermarket.
I don't any downside to being "allowed" to use my pocket computer to its "god intended" potential.
"The Adobe Updater must update itself before it can check for updates. Would you like to update the Adobe Updater now?"
This campaign was launched at enthusiasts who are mostly spec obsessed and they did not have complete specs on the device. There was no working prototype either so for most of us it was too rich to throw money in without knowing what we would get and how it would perform. That leaves Ubuntu fanboys, seems there are quite a few :-D
Mestar is wrong anyways. A 130W 3.4GHz Pentium D (c2006) is a little slower than the current 8.5W 2GHz Atom S1260. Both would still be fine, performance wise, for current desktop use of course. The fastest ARM quad and octo core CPUs deliver very close to this level of performance at 5W.
Give it a year or 2 and even cellphones will be faster than the granddaddy of spaceheater CPUs
The only reason I can't use a phone or tablet for 100% of my internet use, is that some youtube videos aren't allowed "on mobile" for some stupid reason.
Try using a browser that can use the Flash plugin and spoof its user agent, like Firefox with the Phony extension. I don't think I've come across any of those videos to try it with, but it should work.
I didn't see that requirement anywhere bar comments on here. On the Indiegogo site they state you can pay by card, perhaps that is through Paypal, but I'm sure Paypal can process card payments without requiring an account.
Man-O-Man do the Ubuntu fanboys annoy me. Canonical never really expected the fundraiser to succeed? This was all a marketing exercise? Come on, you'll give yourself a lot more credibility if you just admit this was a dismal failure.
They like to mention the fact that the Ubuntu Edge campaign holds a record for most pledges, but It holds the record for the largest unsuccessfully funded project too.
Linux users are cheap, there is no money to be made from them. The top selling app in Ubuntu App store has dozens of sales.
Also, lets not forget Canonical is a for-profit company. It's a bit pathetic for it to have to crowd source funding.
Not sure what they were thinking. A highly ambitious goal, marketed at a customer base who chooses to spend $0 on their OS.
The problem with Linux is its a zero sum game, in this case, revenue. Canonical, like others before them, will eventually die off as their user base are the tightest on earth. Their product is good, their market is not.
Would any of the typical Linux user base, pay $30-300 for each release of their favourite distro? some will, most wont. Linux == Dead
And what is the "cloud" or server farm but just another form of mainframe?
There are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a 'fib,' the second is a downright lie, and the third is statistics.
Better overall? I don't think you can make such an assessment. They're potentially better for higher specced components due to better heat dissipation, and getting to choose your own parts, sure. But better for everyday uses? Better for taking with you everywhere you go? Nope.
Well, I considered gaming on PC quite a specialised application these days, but I've just looked at the numbers and the market has surged quite a bit since 2010. But a lot of games still run well on moderately specced laptops.
The only friends of mine who still have desktops are hardcore gamer geeks. The rest of my friends either have consoles, or do without gaming entirely (because they've discovered ways of having fun in real life).
which is totally what she said
Well, a lot of phones can do HDMI out. Android can use Bluetooth/USB mice and keyboards too (or you can get tablets such as the Asus Transformer that have keyboard docks).
I'm not sure how good Linux ports are for phones at the moment, as I haven't tried any for years, but there are options out there.
which is totally what she said
Another project has popped up on Indiegogo, the Linca Exiler SuperSMartPhone, which has got a more reasonable goal, http://igg.me/at/exiler/x/4108381
Sure, but then the box powering you cad session will be your smartphone docked into that stuff. Same way I use a laptop now.
This seems a bit much when you can get a generic phone in Shenzhen for just 12 USD.
I would be interested to see Bunny Huang's take on this......
( It is Tim actually) nm
http://www.not2misc.com/2013/07/tim-doesnt-give.html
I have used Ubuntu since 8.10 and have 12.04.2 right now. I tried Unity and recently had to fall back to it because I broke something in Gnome Classic. I try to give competing approaches a chance, even occasionally trying Microsoft releases, but I haven't seen Win 8 as yet. The point is that if you try to use Unity on a desktop you lose the direct access you have to the nested menus you have in Gnome Classic or Gnome 2. It becomes time consuming to open dash every time you want to look for the little used application you've installed and you can't remember what it is called. I've even had to open a terminal and do ls on /usr/bin to jog my memory. I fixed the Gnome Classic problem I had and switched back.
Unity is fine for a touch screen application, I suppose, just not as the default GUI for a desktop with a mouse and keyboard. It was the perception that Shuttleworth was going to cram Unity down our throat that made many of us traditional desktop users unhappy with him. Bringing back Gnome Classic and hopefully keeping support for legacy X11 clients as well is the right thing to do.
So all the talk about an Ubuntu phone, but I saw a couple of weeks ago, I think it was on Gismodo, a small set-top box, that could easily replace a desk-side box and with a USB hub add in your existing peripherals, for $99. The device used mobile chips, low power and a flash disk.
So five years ago I bought a $300 desk-side box, Athlon-64 dual processor, 320 GB HDD, and 2 Gig ram. I would guess that if someone offered a processor that was x86 compatable, that I could run Linux off a USB stick or off the flash disk, no problem. If this device were also a phone but I brought it home and docked it and attached the USB hub it could operate exactly like my desktop system. If I could install any Linux I wanted, write code, save video and web pages, write webpages, so much the better, and at home could access a NAS or external HDD. Am I just off the boat or does such a thing exist now? Do we even have to seriously worry about Ubuntu Phone getting funded or not?