4 ms·
They kinda screwed it up. They should have went for something more reasonable like 8-10 mil. One of the rationalization was that 32 million funding goal or 40k
by pavs 13y ago
They kinda screwed it up. They should have went for something more reasonable like 8-10 mil.
One of the rationalization was that 32 million funding goal or 40k devices would give the market validation. But they ignored the part where they are a new player in a very saturated existing market, with a new unproven device.
The plan to only sell device through indigogo is also silly. It kinda back-fired from the intended goal. They thought that having it exclusive to IG would help it make it a successful campaign. I don't see why couldn't they also make it available through Ubuntu shop and sell it in the future like Nexus.
Anyways, it easy to find mistakes when things don't work out as planned. But I genuinely hope, they rethink the brain-fart idea to not sell it if they don't meet the funding goal.
- JonFish85 13y agoI question whether this was anything more than a way to test the waters and see if people would actually put up some money. Maybe they can use this as a benchmark to at least get some leverage with suppliers, and then set a more realistic goal for fundraising.
- shubhamjain 13y agoThat sounds really dubious since Mark Shuttleworth explicitly said that there is'nt going to be an Edge if it fails to reach its funding goal. To me it sounds more like Canonical got over-realistic with their target. May be they got in the line of thinking that 40K devices are pinch of a much larger Ubuntu community that exists.
- Flimm 13y agoThere isn't going to be an Edge, but there could well be other models of phones for Ubuntu.
- DrinkWater 13y agoI fully agree with that.
- why-el 13y agoAsking for 30+ million to test the waters is kind of a stretch in my opinion.
- JonFish85 13y agoWell I just mean setting a bar so high that if you raise the money, great, it's worth a shot! If you don't, you can at least gauge interest and decide if you want to revise and be a bit more realistic.
- mgpetkov 13y agoMaybe they don't want to invest their own money in a very competitive market. If they order smaller number of devices their BOM can easily reach the sale price, so $32 millions sound huge sum, but in fact are not.
- frank_boyd 13y agoMaybe they knew what they were doing and the whole thing was to get valuable market data (and also free press). With that data, they probably become more credible in negotiations with carriers. So it's still a win for everybody.