Ubuntu Edge is dead, long live Ubuntu phones

Canonical raises an impressive $12.8 million, but it needed $32 million.

Jon Brodkin – Aug 22, 2013 8:02 am | 106

Not the Ubuntu Edge, but Ubuntu phones will hit the market sooner or later. Credit: Canonical

Canonical’s attempt to raise $32 million to build the Ubuntu Edge, a powerful phone that can double as a desktop when docked with a monitor, mouse, and keyboard, has failed. The crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo took in “only” $12.8 million before the deadline passed a few hours ago.

Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth had told BBC that the Edge would be such a high-end device that “we would have been bringing the future forward a year or two at least.” But this doesn’t mean Ubuntu phones themselves are dead. The smartphone interface for the Ubuntu operating system is still being developed, and carriers around the world have signed on as potential launch partners.

We’ve asked Canonical if it has any alternative plans now that the Edge campaign is over, and we haven’t heard back. However, the company posted a final update to the Indiegogo page:

We raised $12,809,906, making the Edge the world’s biggest ever fixed crowdfunding campaign. Let’s not lose sight of what an achievement that is. Close to 20,000 people believed in our vision enough to contribute hundreds of dollars for a phone months in advance, just to help make it happen. It wasn’t just individuals, either: Bloomberg LP gave $80,000 and several smaller businesses contributed $7,000 each. Thank you all for getting behind us.

Then there’s the Ubuntu community. Many of you gave your time as well as money, organising your own mailing lists, social media strategies and online ads, and successfully reaching out to your local media. We even saw entire sites created to gather information and help promote the Edge. We’ll be contacting our biggest referrers personally.

Most importantly, the big winner from this campaign is Ubuntu. While we passionately wanted to build the 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.

Since the campaign didn’t meet its funding requirement, refunds will be processed to backers within five business days, Canonical said.

The public exposure Ubuntu phones got during the campaign is much-needed, considering that they will be coming to market long after iOS and Android have become entrenched in consumers’ minds as the premier mobile operating systems.

Shuttleworth told Ars recently that investment in Canonical’s phone project is one factor that’s keeping the company from becoming profitable immediately. But the gamble is worth it, he said, to create a single platform powering smartphones, tablets, PCs, servers, and cloud networks operating in giant data centers.

One positive from the crowdfunding was that it helped Canonical negotiate with major component suppliers to lower the cost of building Ubuntu phones. While that won’t result in production of the Edge itself (unless Canonical has another trick up its sleeve), those kinds of negotiations will be important for Canonical as it brings other Ubuntu phones to market.

The first Ubuntu phones are expected to go on sale in Q1 2014. Those meeting certain specs (including a Quad-core A9 or Intel Atom processor, 1GB memory, and 32GB of flash storage) would be able to double as a PC when docked. The Edge would have had an unnamed multi-core CPU, 4GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage.

For now, those of you wanting to use Ubuntu Touch on a smartphone or tablet will have to install prerelease versions onto one of Google’s Nexus devices.