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Ubuntu Edge fails to raise goal

indiegogo.com

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Re: Ubuntu Edge fails to raise goal

#31

Post by forgottenpaswrd »

oracuk wrote: post #16

I hope this isn't unfair but.. Does this mean that Canonical either don't believe enough in Ubuntu Edge to raise the $20m difference themselves or that Canonical do believe in it but are not able to raise $20m? I have to admit I am skeptical about the commitment of a large, established, company to a product that they are not willing to put their own skin in the game to develop. However, I can understand and have part…

"Does this mean that Canonical either don't believe enough in Ubuntu Edge to raise the $20m difference themselves or that Canonical do believe in it but are not able to raise $20m?"

Given that Mark is a billionaire, he could put that amount of money with just a telephone call. In fact he has done that with Ubuntu as more than this amount has been given to Ubuntu by him over the years.

They were just testing the waters with this project. Mark always wanted to make an Ubuntu laptop so Ubuntu Edge does not surprise me. But the project has to sustain itself.

Entrepreneurs have this concept of "pivot": Mark last Mark's words: "and we’ve learned a lot of invaluable lessons about crowdfunding. ". I certainly believe they will pivot with what they learned somewhat in the future.

Re: Ubuntu Edge fails to raise goal

#32

Post by moreati »

SteveDeFacto wrote: post #24
bbx wrote: post #7

Genuine off-topic question: why didn't they go through Kickstarter, to potentially reach more users (although a $32M goal is huge)?

I think they get to keep the money they raised even though they didn't meet the goal.

They don't, the campaign is Fixed Funding - once it failed to meet the target all backers got a full refund http://www.indiegogo.com/how-pricing-works-on-indiegogo

Re: Ubuntu Edge fails to raise goal

#33

Post by pavlov »

I don't need another phone but I like the project, so I gave my money once it became clear that they're not going to reach the $32 million goal.

How IndieGogo works is that they charge the money immediately but refund it if the campaign doesn't reach its goal. So basically I lent $725 to IndieGogo for a week. Expressing support for Ubuntu in "real money" won't get cheaper than this!

Re: Ubuntu Edge fails to raise goal

#35

Post by oracuk »

liljimmytables wrote: post #26
oracuk wrote: post #16

I hope this isn't unfair but.. Does this mean that Canonical either don't believe enough in Ubuntu Edge to raise the $20m difference themselves or that Canonical do believe in it but are not able to raise $20m? I have to admit I am skeptical about the commitment of a large, established, company to a product that they are not willing to put their own skin in the game to develop. However, I can understand and have part…

I don't think it's unfair, IIRC they were quite explicit about the fact that they were using crowdfunding as a way to measure the market. They would quite definitely have had to "put their own skin in the game" (I want to know what games you've been playing) alongside the crowd funds, but now they know that there isn't a keen enough market outside of nerds and they haven't wasted their money. As a nerd I'm disappoint…

Not those sort of games:

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/skin_in_the_game

:)

Re: Ubuntu Edge fails to raise goal

#36

Post by reitzensteinm »

oracuk wrote: post #16

I hope this isn't unfair but.. Does this mean that Canonical either don't believe enough in Ubuntu Edge to raise the $20m difference themselves or that Canonical do believe in it but are not able to raise $20m? I have to admit I am skeptical about the commitment of a large, established, company to a product that they are not willing to put their own skin in the game to develop. However, I can understand and have part…

You're assuming that the $32m would have been enough to fund the project entirely, but that's not necessarily the case.

Imagine a scenario where Canonical budgeted the project at $50m, deciding that they'd be willing to invest up to $18m of their own money in addition to the Indiegogo cash.

In this case, they would have plenty of skin in the game, and yet they wouldn't be willing to go even further to shore up the weak campaign results.

They would be amortizing the R&D over a small number of phones, and their goals are ambitious for a company with no hardware experience. Even in the circumstance of a fully funded campaign, the project would have real potential to be an endless money pit of delays and frustration.

Re: Ubuntu Edge fails to raise goal

#37

Post by IanCal »

SteveDeFacto wrote: post #24
bbx wrote: post #7

Genuine off-topic question: why didn't they go through Kickstarter, to potentially reach more users (although a $32M goal is huge)?

I think they get to keep the money they raised even though they didn't meet the goal.

No they don't, it was marked as "fixed funding" which is explained here:

http://www.indiegogo.com/how-pricing-works-on-indiegogo

Re: Ubuntu Edge fails to raise goal

#38

Post by martin-adams »

$32 mil is a lot to aim for, but their goal was to see if there is an marketplace for cutting edge technology where innovation can really thrive. If you lowered the threshold then it starts to lose what they set out to prove - is the industry too scared to innovate because they will lose their market share.

They have proved there is a market for £12 mil on a product that is only a concept at this stage. Had this product been in stores today I believe they would have sold far more than $32 mil, both from the immediate availability but also increased exposure.

I am looking forward to seeing the Ubuntu phones come. It shouldn't be seen as a failure as to Canonical, it was an experiment. They tested to see if people would go wild for something like this and now they know that people do want it, but it's not as straightforward as they now need to get the mainstream manufacturers on board and sell a product, not a concept.

At least that's my take on it.

Re: Ubuntu Edge fails to raise goal

#39

Post by harrytuttle »

pavlov wrote: post #33

I don't need another phone but I like the project, so I gave my money once it became clear that they're not going to reach the $32 million goal. How IndieGogo works is that they charge the money immediately but refund it if the campaign doesn't reach its goal. So basically I lent $725 to IndieGogo for a week. Expressing support for Ubuntu in "real money" won't get cheaper than this!

So IndieGogo works by pocketing the interest rather than you. Not a bad business model.

Re: Ubuntu Edge fails to raise goal

#40

Post by Kliment »

zx2c4 wrote: post #17
Aldo_MX wrote: post #8

I liked the idea, but I refuse to use a phone without a landscape physical keyboard. Virtual keyboards are awful. All of them. They take too much screen real state away from me, yet they're small enough to make me struggle when trying to write something complex like my secure password ... Swype and similar options are not an option either, because I write in different languages, and no matter how good the text predic…

Likewise. My N950 has an incredible keyboard -- it even have a proper control key -- but its operating system is completely dead in the water. There don't seem to be any modern Android phones that run on GSM and have physical keyboards. The Phonon Q has its SIM card soldered to the phone. I just ordered a Galaxy S Relay off ebay, which is last year's hardware and its physical keyboard is supposed to be kind of bad an…

How did you get an N950? And also, why dead in the water? It's still the most open and upgradeable mobile OS I've ever seen on a real device.
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