Recently in the news there was a lot of talk about a smart phone that was on its' way to setting the largest crowd funding record ever. The smartphone is called the Unbuntu Edge, and its’ campaign raised nearly $12.8 million. The device that previous held the record for the largest crowd funding record was The Pebble Watch Campaign. The Pebble Watch campaign was ran by Kickstarter, and the product was a smartwatch that raised close to 10.3 million in funding.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with crowd funding, it describes “the collective effort of individuals who network and pool their resources, usually via the Internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations. Crowd funding is used in support of a wide variety of activities, including disaster relief, citizen journalism, support of artists by fans, political campaigns, startup company funding, movie or free software development, and scientific research”
The Unbuntu Edge
The Unbuntu Edge, created by a UK based software company, Canonical, has been advertised as having the “mobility of a smartphone and the power of a desktop on a single device” according to Canonical’s founder Mark Shuttleworth, According to the smart phone’s campaign, The Unbuntu Edge will have more internal storage than either the iPhone5 or Galaxy S4. The Unbuntu Edge can hold 128 GB where as the iPhone5 can hold 64 GB and the Galaxy S4 can hold 16 GB – and the Unbuntu Edge is less expensive!
This well known campaign averaged more than $419,000 in donations per day. However, even with the impressive amount of money that the campaign raised, The Unbuntu Edge fell short of the $32 million goal. Canonical used something called a “fixed plan” when raising money for the Unbuntu Edge, which means that because the goal was not met, they will not be able to collect any of the money raised and will have to return it to the donors.
After watching an informational video on the phone and the campaign, I have to admit I was definitely becoming interested. It seems as if Canonical has looked at every other smart phone out there today and tried to fix their most pressing issues: storage space, breakability, etc. Canonical is extremely passionate about the design and the vision of the Unbuntu Edge. In my opinion, it sure is a shame that they did not make enought money to continue on with project.
I just recently saw the movie Jobs in theatres, the story of Steve Jobs life, and it strangely reminded me of this campaign. Steve Jobs' goal in life was to create the most innovative technology possible, regardless of how much money or time it was going to take. I personally believe that it is undeniable that Jobs created some incredible products with Apple, but there were definitely some people that thought that he was putting way too much time and money into some of his ideas.
So what about The Unbuntu Edge? Yes, it is an incredible phone, and probably one of the most high tech smart phones created to date, but has the goal been set too high? Is this a product that requires too much money to make? After a campaign such as this one fails, you have to step back and ask yourself why. Why did they fall so short of their $32 million dollar goal? Do you think that The Unbuntu Edge is too much? Lord knows Steve Jobs would have been impressed by the idea.
What do you think about this? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below and watch this video to check out the product that set the largest crowd funding record, ever.
