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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.
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
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.
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
*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