So, just 9 hours remaining and Ubuntu are some $19.5 milllion short of their goal.
What goal you say? Well, it’s a crowd-funded project to build the Ubuntu Edge, a smartphone that dual-boots into Ubuntu Mobile and Android whilst also converting into a full desktop PC. It’s going to be exclusively available to IndieGoGo backers at launch..
..or at least it will be if someone gets almost $20 million out of their pocket. We’ll know by morning (UK time) ..
Quite sad really. I have a feeling this project would have got backing maybe 2-3 years ago. But then again, they were asking for FAR too much money. It would have been a close thing back then even.
Now the two main platforms are so well established (iOS and Android), it doesn’t really leave a great deal of room in the marketplace for anything else. If Android was weak, then I could understand it more, but it’s simply not.
While this Ubuntu phone does have a few USPs, it’s not far enough different from the top-end Android stuff to really matter.
So, smartphone manufacturers – why not just build the hardware and leave it to us to choose the software?