

Ubuntu Edge - Less than 24 hours left, $20 million to go - hmottestad
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubuntu-edge#123

======
pavs
They kinda screwed it up. They should have went for something more reasonable
like 8-10 mil.

One of the rationalization was that 32 million funding goal or 40k devices
would give the market validation. But they ignored the part where they are a
new player in a very saturated existing market, with a new unproven device.

The plan to only sell device through indigogo is also silly. It kinda back-
fired from the intended goal. They thought that having it exclusive to IG
would help it make it a successful campaign. I don't see why couldn't they
also make it available through Ubuntu shop and sell it in the future like
Nexus.

Anyways, it easy to find mistakes when things don't work out as planned. But I
genuinely hope, they rethink the brain-fart idea to not sell it if they don't
meet the funding goal.

~~~
JonFish85
I question whether this was anything more than a way to test the waters and
see if people would actually put up some money. Maybe they can use this as a
benchmark to at least get some leverage with suppliers, and then set a more
realistic goal for fundraising.

~~~
why-el
Asking for 30+ million to _test_ the waters is kind of a stretch in my
opinion.

~~~
JonFish85
Well I just mean setting a bar _so high_ that if you raise the money, great,
it's worth a shot! If you don't, you can at least gauge interest and decide if
you want to revise and be a bit more realistic.

------
gregpilling
I was in Shenzhen in the spring, and there are many companies offering to make
electronics for you. Minimum Order Quantity 1000. Many phones were available
for under $200 that looked fairly deluxe, clones of the Samsung Note 2 and
Galaxy 3, as well as some with more features like FM, TV, Dual Sim.

Why did this project need to raise so much money? And why so high of a price
for the handset? I think that this project would have succeeded with lower
goals. We are reaching what Bunnie Huang suggested, the era where screens are
pixel-filled, batteries are long lasting and improvements are incremental.
[http://boingboing.net/2011/09/27/bunnie-huang-the-best-
days-...](http://boingboing.net/2011/09/27/bunnie-huang-the-best-days-of-open-
hardware-are-yet-to-come.html)

Surely they could have done a phone in the $300-$400 range?

~~~
rlpb
Then, presumably, it wouldn't be any different from other phones that exist on
the market already, which completely defeats the point. This project is for
better phone hardware, not just "Ubuntu on a phone" for which you can already
run the development preview on existing phones.

~~~
nissimk
But I agree with gregpilling. Why did they have to add all of those untested
features to the spec. Is sapphire glass really better or is it just a fancy
sounding gimmick? And what's up with "Silicon-anode Li-ion?" More RAM sounded
good to me and the whole ubuntu in your pocket thing also sounds great, but
premium pricing and new hardware technologies that are unproven worry me.

~~~
Zigurd
Sapphire glass will be used on several new upcoming high-end smartphones, and
is already used by Vertu. So, yes, it is just a fancy sounding gimmick and
will be commonplace in 2014.

~~~
samatman
Sapphire glass is far from being a 'fancy sounding gimmick'.

It is, in fact, the "transparent aluminum" from Star Trek. Which was an
elaborate joke on the fact that pure aluminum oxide is harder than anything
except elemental boron and diamond.

Keep emery boards away from your sapphire screen and it simply will not
scratch. I can't wait, personally, and have been disappointed that the camera
lens on iPhones is not yet sapphire since the 4.

~~~
Zigurd
I'm sorry if I was being unclear. By "Fancy sounding gimmick" I meant it's not
something that special. Many quality watches have used sapphire for a long
time, and the use on phones is a result of scaling up production.

Scratch resistance is not the only measure of a desirable screen material. It
has to bend and resist breaking due to flexing and impact. Sapphire is
unlikely to take over all phone screens because it is unlikely to have
superior properties for all parameters.

~~~
samatman
All true. As I mentioned, camera lenses would be the biggest improvement.
Likely universal within a year or two.

------
ronaldx
Despite that, I believe this is already the most money ever pledged to a
crowdfunding project?

Pebble raised $10,266,844

Ubuntu Edge currently $12,243,447

~~~
Kudos
Star Citizen is at over $15 million.
[https://robertsspaceindustries.com/](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/)

------
talhof8
It's indeed sad to see this die but frankly it didn't stand a chance from the
very beginning. $32 million is way too ambitious.

------
AndrewDucker
I would have been tempted to pay for this, if it was going through.

But with it clearly not going to go through, I wasn't going to put several
hundred dollars in, just to get it back again two weeks later.

I wonder how many others thought the same way.

~~~
bratsche
But I think part of the purpose of all of this is to prove to phone
manufacturers that there is a demand.

If you put your money in for a couple weeks and then got it back, you'd be
contributing toward that goal. And it sounds like that's a goal that maybe you
care about, since you were tempted to pay for it.

------
eponymous
The idea that Canonical was just testing the market with this crowd funding
effort, and that they are using it to prove demand to carriers is absolutely
ridiculous! A failed crowd funding campaign is not good publicity. I would bet
that after this a significant number of the persons/organizations who pledged
will not pledge so easily again.

I would love if this phone saw the light of day. But Canonical were way too
ambitious with this campaign. They should have asked for less money, and
gotten a majority of it from large investors. But I guess they didn't want to
give up any stake in the venture.

------
octo_t
I'm imagining Canonical might chip in the remaining money at the last minute?

~~~
rlpb
Mark Shuttleworth has specifically said that he will not do that. From the
Reddit AMA:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1j166z/hi_im_mark_shut...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1j166z/hi_im_mark_shuttleworth_founder_of_ubuntu/cba4b3n)

"Lots of folks have speculated I might close the gap if it's close. But I
think that would not be in the spirit of the project; rather I would hope
someone smarter than me will come up with a better concept that DOES get
greenlighted, because I really believe in the idea of crowdsourcing the signal
to innovation."

~~~
smithzvk
I understand that he said this, and I think that he is being honest, but just
to point out: if he was secretly planning on bailing it out at the last
minute, saying that you will pick up any slack is probably not a good way to
run a crowd funding campaign.

------
cryptoz
It ain't over 'till it's over. Shuttleworth won't "close the gap", but there
are plenty of other wealthy people who might really, really want this to
succeed. I'm still hopeful.

------
paulrademacher
These hardware projects emphasize the product look (and by implication the
feel) way too much. The Edge here looks super slick, cool to the touch, and
pleasantly heavy, with perfectly smooth edges. The same was true of Ouya and
its controller on kickstarter.

But making perfect hardware is hard, and in fact the finished product would
never be so delightful. It'd be more realistic to offer lower-fidelity mockups
instead of those beautifully rendered images.

But I guess "realistic" doesn't sell.

------
Mustafabei
Considering ALL of the contribution packages with limits are claimed in the
remaining hours, which would be:

3920000$ + 420000$ = 4340000$,

for the funding to succeed; 15422386$ worth of other contributions have to
also be made. That is:

771119,3 Founder or, 514079,5 Forgot International Shipping :) or, 308447,4
Founder With Style or,

more reasonably;

22190 Ubuntu Edge or, 2203 Enterprise Starter Kit contributions in just under
20 hours.

Anyone wanna bet?

~~~
jherdman
Unrelated question, but where are you from? I've not seen anyone write numbers
quite like this before. It's sort of french, but sort of not...

~~~
xiaq
Quite some countries use commas as decimal marks:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_mark#Countries_using_Ar...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_mark#Countries_using_Arabic_numerals_with_decimal_comma)

------
tuananh
If the funding succeeded, I'm not sure how many company will actually let
employee use this phone/desktop at work.

Losing the phone is a lot scarier now.

~~~
dkuntz2
Scarier than losing a company laptop?

~~~
tuananh
which one is more likely? loosing a phone or a laptop?

~~~
dkuntz2
Having never lost a phone or a laptop, I don't know.

While a phone is smaller, it's something most people check frequently, and
typically notice if it's missing quickly.

Plus, don't most phones have email, which is almost as bad as the documents
stored on a computer, because most of them are sent over email?

------
forgottenpaswrd
695 plus taxes(and in Europe it is at least 21-23%) is lots of money for a
phone.

Why they don't finance it? It is the only way normal people could buy it.

~~~
emilv
The price was including taxes (VAT), and I guess they would ship it from UK to
European backers, with no duties inside the European union.

I agree that the price was high, but not higher than for other phones in the
same market segment (comparable hardware and such). The problem with the price
is that it wasn't very attractive either. A new, untested phone 9 months from
now, for the same price and with comparable hardware to currently existing
phones.

------
edwintorok
How much of the phone will work without non-free firmware? For example GTA04
still requires non-free firmware for Wi-Fi and 3D:
[http://projects.goldelico.com/p/gta04-main/page/FAQ/#wikitit...](http://projects.goldelico.com/p/gta04-main/page/FAQ/#wikititle_10)

------
philjackson
I wonder how much interest Indiegogo are making right now? Do they share that
with Canonical?

------
JimmaDaRustla
That's an ambitious goal for crowd sourcing...

------
jonhmchan
It's such a shame to see this go away. I really found the idea of carrying
around a desktop OS in your pocket really fascinating.

------
option_greek
It's sad to see this die :(. Hope it will rise from ashes some day.

~~~
Zigurd
It was badly formulated in the first place. Ubuntu on phones is interesting
because it's Ubuntu, not because some team with no previous track record in
hardware wants to build a high-end phone. Making it about the hardware was
unnecessary. How many of you would have bought a pre-configured Ubuntu phone
on any decent existing ODM hardware platform?

~~~
rlpb
I don't just want Ubuntu on my phone. I want my main Ubuntu desktop running on
my phone, so that I can take it with me, with just an external monitor and
keyboard needed at my desk. To make that experience really great, we need
better phone hardware.

~~~
Zigurd
Many existing phones have hdmi-out, and can connect to Bluetooth keyboards and
mice. Some also have USB-to-go. There was nothing new in the Edge hardware
that would enhance that.

~~~
rlpb
"We’ll choose the fastest available multi-core processor, at least 4GB of RAM
and a massive 128GB of storage."

My point is that smartphones today would still be a bit sluggish when used for
typical desktop tasks. While basic browsing would be OK, I want to be able
open thirty tabs simultaneously like I do on my desktop. And (in my case) run
a compiler. Etc.

~~~
nknighthb
With a projected ship date of May (and who really expected it would hit that,
even if it were funded?), the gap would have been narrow at best. It would be
over a year after the Galaxy S4 shipped with 2GB of RAM and 64GB of storage,
and probably 6 months after the expected iPhone 5S ships with currently-
unknown specs.

You're comparing it to the current generation of smartphones. It's shipping
with the _next_ generation.

------
zackmorgs
Yeah, that's not Kickstarter. They're keeping that money.

~~~
rlpb
False. The money is returned if the funding doesn't reach the goal. From the
FAQ:

What if you fail to reach the funding target?

We appreciate every bit of support we receive during the 30 days, and every
backer will be welcomed into the Ubuntu community. If we don’t reach our
target then we will focus only on commercially available handsets and there
will not be an Ubuntu Edge. All contributions will be fully refunded.

~~~
jellicle
I asked the last time around, but didn't get an answer: who's on the hook for
the $300,000 in non-refundable credit card fees incurred by this project?
Kickstarter's page on this is unclear.

~~~
chrisoverzero
Kickstarter's page is probably _very_ unclear on the policies of Indiegogo.
Indiegogo only accepts PayPal for "fixed funding" campaigns.

[0]: [http://support.indiegogo.com/entries/20492953-Fees-
Pricing-](http://support.indiegogo.com/entries/20492953-Fees-Pricing-)

[1]: [http://support.indiegogo.com/entries/20566503-Fixed-vs-
Flexi...](http://support.indiegogo.com/entries/20566503-Fixed-vs-Flexible-
Funding)

