Canonical launched the Ubuntu Edge Indiegogo campaign back on July 22nd. At the time they had a few pricing options available with deals for those who jumped in quickly. A few days after that initial launch we saw the pricing restructured. And by restructured, we are referring to a wider variety of pricing options. Well, flash forward till today and it looks like that same campaign has once again had some price changes.
This time the price has gone down. Gone is the range that had the price topping out at $830. As of today those looking to back the Ubuntu Edge campaign have just one option. The new price is $695. This includes the handset itself along with a one year subscription to LastPass Premium and a place on the Ubuntu Edge Founders page.
The folks at Canonical have said this new (and single) level comes as a result of some “major industry backing.” They have also said this is a special price that will remain until the end of the campaign. The campaign still has 14 days left to run and assuming the goal level is reached — the Ubuntu Edge smartphone is expected to ship in May 2014.
This brings us to the topic of whether Canonical will reach their goal. The Indiegogo page has the goal amount of $32,000,000 and as of today (with 14 days remaining) they have secured $8,578,527 towards that goal. With half the campaign already gone, it seems like raising the remaining funds may be a bit of a struggle. But for that we will have to wait and see how this all plays out.
Touching back on that corporate backer, that looks to have been Bloomberg. This was for the Enterprise 100 perk, which is $80,000. While Justin Erenkrantz, Head of Web Architecture at Bloomberg LP’s CTO Office has talked about how “Ubuntu’s goal to offer a single-device solution for enterprise convergence and mobility is an exciting prospect and one that complements our vision for open development on the mobile platform” this also means they will be getting 100 Ubuntu Edge devices and access to a range of Canonical workshops and technical support.
I’m looking forward to Ubuntu OS, but I’m not interested in their phone itself. It would quite happy if I can port Ubuntu on an existing phone, as is currently the case with the Nexus line or like HTC One or Samsun Galaxy S? series. I’m not so interested in the dual-boot functionality. I want a phone OS that I have control over. I don’t want Google or Apple tell me what I can or cannot run nor use me as an data source for their data analytics business.
I understand the motivation for developing the phone, both for revenue and to assure performance specs. But I think it is a mistake to go down such a resource intensive path. Ubuntu should look to market and profit from the OS itself rather than the hardware, either by working directly with the Android hardware maker and/or working through 3rd party conversion services, assuming it doesn’t violate hardware EULA.
Admittedly, much of the Android hardware is mixed bag, but it is getting really good. If they focus on making the OS interoperable across (Android) platforms, they have a chance to make a dent in the smartphone space.