Canonical Seeks $32 Million To Make Ubuntu Smartphone

nk497 writes "Canonical has kicked off a crowdfunding campaign to raise $32 million in 30 days to make its own smartphone, called Ubuntu Edge, that can also hook up to a monitor and be used as a PC. If it meets its funding target on Indiegogo, the Ubuntu Edge is scheduled to arrive in May 2014. To get one, backers must contribute $600 (£394) on the first day or $810 (£532) thereafter. Canonical will only make 40,000 of the devices."

Why? ~nt~

[OverlordQ]

~nt~

Re:Why? ~nt~

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess Shuttleworth is tired of spending his own money on developing tech nobody wants.

Re:Why no direct link ?

[Lunix Nutcase]

How can PCPro get page hits and ad impressions by linking to the IndieGoGo page?

Too much bullshit from Canonical

[Animats]

Canonical has bullshitted too much in the past to be taken seriously about this. Several times, they've announced that new products from major vendors (Asus, Dell) would run their version of Linux. Never happened. They need to STFU until the product ships.

Re:Why? ~nt~

[GovCheese]

As a corporate overlord to well-meaning young hippie-leaning techies, Canonical has always been a bit odd. I recall their early versions came bundled with video samples of Nelson Mandela. That sort of bald-faced symbolic sales pitch to the young and idealistic was cleverly successful even if it now seems a bit easier to criticize them for their recent decisions. If it's a walled garden they're building, I suppose it'll have lots of flowers in it.

Re:Too much bullshit from Canonical

[composer777]

It works great if the risk taker is poor or middle class and cash strapped, and I think that's what it is (or should be) intended for. Otherwise, I agree, it's ridiculous for a billionaire to use this method for funding, but that's why he's a billionaire (along with all the other billionaires). It's because he knows how to work the system and has few scruples.

Re:Too much bullshit from Canonical

[master_kaos]

I like how they have an $80,000 option, and then want an additional $100 for shipping. Really we just gave you 80k and you want extra to ship it??
  I think the crowd funding is great for projects where the person would have no way to fund the project on their own, but these private for profit businesses doing this is ridiculous, they want no risk but all the profit and glory.

I know double fine did it(I even supported it) but at least you can see where they are going with not going with a publisher

Re:Crowdfunding??

[Microlith]

Yeah, how dare companies attempt to crowd source things! Damn, I just put up $200 to a Japanese animation studio so they could extend a sequel to a short they did, what madness is this!? Haven't people realized that rather than showing support for things they like and want, they should just shut up and take what's given to them?

Obviously, we're all supposed to just buy whatever Android, iOS, or Windows Phone is on the market. Choice? What nonsense!

Re:No thanks Gnome

[h4rr4r]

There is a lot wrong with android.
1. No good window managers, this means tiling and layering
2. Sudo not built in
3. Lack of normal linux desktop, including X. So I have to use VNC to get normal linux apps to display.
4. lack of decent package management. This means repositories and debs/rpms. This means being able to support dependencies.

Re:Why? ~nt~

[rtfa-troll]

There are plenty of us who want Linux Mint [linuxmint.com] and easy to use Linux. The mere fact that Shuttleworth went off on a weird Unity loop and left it for others to commercialise the technology he originally developed doesn't mean we don't want or shouldn't recognise his vision and financial contribution. I think that going direct to the contribution page [indiegogo.com] and booking a cool new Linux device doesn't sound like a major pain for a bunch of us.

If people keep buying the interesting new Linux directed devices then this will keep the hardware designers making them. That can never be bad.

Re:Why? ~nt~

[DuckDodgers]

If you buy a modern smart phone without a contract in the US, $600 is a pretty normal price. That's for companies like Samsung, HTC, and Apple, which make millions of phones in a batch so they can negotiate a bulk discount from their suppliers.

Canonical is making 40,000 phones at most, so that's too few to get a bulk discount. I think $830 is a reasonable price. However, I don't have $830 handy, or $600. Or $60. I have debt and kids that need to visit an orthodontist. So I'm out.