Ubuntu Edge Falls Short Of $32M Crowdfunding Target
Canonical’s Ubuntu Edge crowd-funded smartphone will remain a dream, having failed to hit its $32m funding target.
The Ubuntu Edge raised $12.8m ahead of today’s deadline on the Indiegogo site, less than half the figure stated necessary to fund production of 40,000 units when the campaign started on 23 July.
Shuttleworth insisted that despite the failure, carriers and handset makers are definitely interested in building handsets which will run the mobile Linux – but that they will not be the top-end “superphones” which the Edge project hoped to produce.
In a statement on the campaign page, Mark Shuttleworth and his Canonical team wrote:
“The big winner from this campaign is Ubuntu. While we passionately wanted to build the Ubuntu 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. 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.
“All of the support and publicity has continued to drive our discussions with some major manufacturers, and we have many of the world’s biggest mobile networks already signed up to the Ubuntu Carrier Advisory Group. They’ll have been watching this global discussion of Ubuntu and the need for innovation very closely indeed. Watch this space!”
The planned Ubuntu Edge would have a 4.5-inch 1,280 x 720 HD display with “pure sapphire crystal” touchscreen rather than glass. It would come with a 8MP rear and 2MP front camera, and run both the Ubuntu phone operating system, which launched in January 2013, and Google Android.
In return for a pledge of £446, backers would have received their own Ubuntu Edge smartphone in May 2014, after the device’s planned launch, and would also have had an opportunity to participate in the final selection of some of the materials and software capabilities.
A valiant effort nonetheless.
