The Ubuntu Edge Indiegogo campaign is slowly failing


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Unless Shuttleworth is prepared to pony up some of his own fortune, this will be a huge PR embarrassment for Canonical. With 20 days to go, they're still under 8 million. I just love it when pompous jerks like Shuttleworth fail.

 

Story:

 

The Ubuntu Edge is a great idea, but Canonical?s Indiegogo goal is monstrous. That $32 million target is a big ask of consumers, and while many jumped on board early, the project has all but shorted out. Short of a miracle, crowdfunding the Ubuntu Edge just isn?t going to happen.

 

Initial support was phenomenal, with about 10% of their goal being raised in the first 24 hours. Early success like that can always be attributed to the core support of your goal or platform. Continued success is only achieved by mass appeal, and it seems the Ubuntu phone just doesn?t have that.

 

At this point, the project has raised just over $7.5 million. With 22 days to go, Canonical needs just over $24.4 million. That?s about $1.1 million a day to meet the goal, and with the flow of backers slowly dwindling, it doesn?t seem likely we?ll see an Ubuntu phone crowdfunded.

 

Let?s not damn Canonical, though. The Edge is a really great concept, and they deserve credit for going full steam at this via Indiegogo. Even though $32 million is a huge goal, and probably has a lot to do with why support has waned, it was refreshing to see a company that could easily source capital offering it to us first. If anything can be said of Ubuntu at this juncture, it?s that even in attempting to bring a device to market, they embraced the open source spirit that got them there.

 

Source - http://www.androidauthority.com/ubuntu-edge-indiegogo-not-going-well-251340/

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Yeah I saw a graphic somewhere that except for some boosts when the started then when they lowered the price, they were really under performing on a per day donation basis.  IMO they went too high for a goal, they should've just built 100 prototypes, then after that created enough hype, go again for the  $32 million.

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9u20jq.png

 

They are far far far behind where they need to be. It's going nowhere fast. They are $4 million behind where they should be at this point... and taking about 4 days to make $1 million.

It will struggle to get past $13 million... less than half the goal.

 

http://ubuntu-edge.info/#total

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Why is he a pompous jerk?! He did an AMA on Reddit, and I thought he came across as really grounded and interesting? 

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9u20jq.png

 

They are far far far behind where they need to be. It's going nowhere fast. They are $4 million behind where they should be at this point... and taking about 4 days to make $1 million.

It will struggle to get past $13 million... less than half the goal.

 

http://ubuntu-edge.info/#total

yeah that graph.

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I think shuttleworth did this PR stunt as some sort of "in your face" stunt, thinking he'd gloat at the end. The phone looks nice but.. seems a little lame on the PR. just make the damn phone and it will sell on its' own merit.

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That guy has 'gigantic douche' written all over him.  Just seems a silly way for a venture capitalist to operate.  

 

He is doing his damnedest to channel a RDF of his own.

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That guy has 'gigantic douche' written all over him.

 

 

I just love it when pompous jerks like Shuttleworth fail.

 

Yeah, because it's not pompous and douchey to call someone you dont even know like that for no good reason. Very mature, guys.

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That guy has 'gigantic douche' written all over him.

 

Whaat. He seems incredibly nice. He had his own business, sold it at the right moment, then gave every employee in the company (regardless of position) 1.000.000 R each, flew into space, contributed code to Debian years before (and after all this) and later started Ubuntu with the goal of making a free OS more accessible to a wide range of people.

 

Too bad the campaign has slowed down, but the people have spoken, and it seems anything more than $700 is too much, which is just a shame, because the specs and features on this one beat anything in the same price category. Makes me think if they aimed even higher and brought the production cost down some more, they might have had a better chance, but they couldn't have known that. At least now everyone knows there's clearly interest in this.

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Wow, surprise surprise. I knew this would fail after a few days of "success". While it's a great concept, it's only a good concept for geeks. Something like this wouldn't work (appeal) for the mass consumers. At the end of the day, which average consumer wants to run Ubuntu OS side by side with Android? You guys have to remember, geeks make up a very very small portion of the mass consumer market. This is why I was hesitant to pay into this. 

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Wow, surprise surprise. I knew this would fail after a few days of "success". While it's a great concept, it's only a good concept for geeks. Something like this wouldn't work (appeal) for the mass consumers. At the end of the day, which average consumer wants to run Ubuntu OS side by side with Android? You guys have to remember, geeks make up a very very small portion of the mass consumer market. This is why I was hesitant to pay into this. 

 

This was never made with the mass consumer in mind, it's a limited run (40.000 devices) aimed at enthusiasts.

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Wow, surprise surprise. I knew this would fail after a few days of "success". While it's a great concept, it's only a good concept for geeks. Something like this wouldn't work (appeal) for the mass consumers. At the end of the day, which average consumer wants to run Ubuntu OS side by side with Android? You guys have to remember, geeks make up a very very small portion of the mass consumer market. This is why I was hesitant to pay into this. 

 

This project never pretended to be for the masses.

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This project never pretended to be for the masses.

 

Then it was doomed for failure from the get go, it's impossible to raise that kind of money without broad mass support, and this didn't have even 10% of the needed support

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This was never made with the mass consumer in mind, it's a limited run (40.000 devices) aimed at enthusiasts.

 

This project never pretended to be for the masses.

Fair enough, but you will need mass market to fund a project like this. This project is highly optimistic and I do realize making a phone like this costs lots of money, but you just need the masses to make a successful smartphone these days. 

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Then it was doomed for failure from the get go, it's impossible to raise that kind of money without broad mass support, and this didn't have even 10% of the needed support

 

This is true, the goal was high. However you cant blame them for trying, nor any harm was done. All the money will be returned.

 

For any joint venture you need a heavy capital injection. Backer pay not only for the device itself, but for the manufacturing.

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I think Canoncial were over-reaching with their target of $32,000,000. Canonical seem to be more interested in getting people to stump up cash as an alternative to taking a risk on their own. Their campaign asks for more money than any crowdfunded campaign in history, and with less evidence that the project is even viable than most campaigns. Kickstarter wouldn't even host their campaign for lack of evidence of prior effort (hypothetically).

AFAICT, the only money Canonical has actually invested is in the renders that they're showing on the campaign page. Personally, I would want to see a bit more physical evidence before investing any money in a project that might not even see the light of day.

Then it was doomed for failure from the get go, it's impossible to raise that kind of money without broad mass support, and this didn't have even 10% of the needed support

They raised $7 million so far, so they've got at least 20% of the necessary support. Don't make up stats.

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They are marketing the phone for enthusiasts and expecting the kind of funding that only a mainstream product could possibly get.

 

If they could offer an unlimited supply of $600 phones they might have a chance of getting a somewhat constant influx of money, but as it stands it was kinda obvious that if they didn't make most of they money in the first few days (before they ran out of enthusiasts willing to give money away) they just wouldn't make it. 7 million is an impressive achievement but falls too short for their 32 million target, no matter how much time is left until the campaign ends.

 

Then again they might bring some new perks in that breathe some life into the campaign, but still I don't think they'll be making it to their goal.

 

Also (although it might not have made much of a difference anyway) starting a crowdfunding campaign on summer doesn't seem to be such a good timming.

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Raising $7 million so far is a incredible accomplishment. I think it shows there is tremendous interest in this. I believe the $32 million goal is a bit too much as well as the having to put down $600 or more at one time. 

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I think Ubuntu is a slow and buggy mess. I wouldn't want this on my phone or tablet. I don't think this project will ever take off.

then you have never used ubuntu lol 

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Yeah I saw a graphic somewhere that except for some boosts when the started then when they lowered the price, they were really under performing on a per day donation basis.  IMO they went too high for a goal, they should've just built 100 prototypes, then after that created enough hype, go again for the  $32 million.

Anything below 10000 would never pay off, the devices would be extremely expensive to produce.

Personally o don't think price is the issue here. Just that people don't see the need for this device, even had the price stayed at the low price, the same thing would have happened. Is a device with no market. All the people that where interested got in at the low level and now they're just getting trickles.

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the problem with limited runs is that its too expensive to produce. the big boys like nvidia for example wont even acknowledge you unless you're ready to make a 100k minimum order for one component. case in point, they are asking 700 freakin dollars. thats brutal.

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I'm personally not interested in this device. I am happy with Android myself. It's Linux based and open to some extend and has huge support and backing from a major corporation (Google) and developers. It would take years for Ubuntu to get to this point, and I'm not willing to wait on them.

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Yeah, because it's not pompous and douchey to call someone you dont even know like that for no good reason. Very mature, guys.

 

Whaat. He seems incredibly nice. He had his own business, sold it at the right moment, then gave every employee in the company (regardless of position) 1.000.000 R each, flew into space, contributed code to Debian years before (and after all this) and later started Ubuntu with the goal of making a free OS more accessible to a wide range of people.

 

You are right, that was a cheap shot.  I don't mean to be flippant, that just how he strikes me.  As you note, I don't know him so its nothing personal - thats just how he comes across to me. (I was a fan of Thawte back in the day and think he has done good works)

 

Its just that over produced RDF persona he's channeling - too Branson. ;)  Plus this whole kickstarter thing seems slimy to me.

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Its just that over produced RDF persona he's channeling - too Branson. ;)  Plus this whole kickstarter thing seems slimy to me.

 

If you want slimy, just take a look at the whole Mir debacle, Canonical love taking NIH syndrome to the next level.

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