5 ms·

Ubuntu Edge: how many phones were really ordered - and the mistakes

35 points by areski 13y ago

hmottestad 13y ago
It would have been nice if they had some graphs showing projects that reached their goals early. What would have happened if Ubuntu had set the goal at 1 million $? Then most of the backers would have certainty when they backed the project since they knew it would succeed in getting funded! Maybe this would have led to 32 million, maybe not.
- archangel_one 13y ago
  There are significant fixed costs, you can't just divide the required goal by 32 to produce 1/32 of the number of phones. I'd guess that $1M wouldn't be enough to even produce one of those phones.
  - hmottestad 13y ago
    That is a downside yes. The question still remains. Would more people have pledged knowing that the project would get funded? Essentially this would be like preordering it.
    - archangel_one 13y ago
      But the problem is that if it reached the goal of $1M but didn't get far past it, they'd be expected to then supply the phones those people had pledged for without actually having enough money to produce them.
    - freehunter 13y ago
      I've backed Kickstarters only after they've already reached their goal, just for the sake of preordering the product. Yes, Kickstarter and IndieGoGo are not meant to be storefronts and I might be a bad citizen for treating it as such, but the incentive is there. If the developers are going to treat these fundraisers as a place to sell a product, I'm going to use these fundraisers as a place to buy a product. Especially in cases where the Kickstarter product is significantly less than the price of the product when it hits retail. If you tell me I can "buy" your product for $8 on Kickstarter and get the product in the mail weeks before it's officially for sale, or I could wait longer and buy it for $20, what do you expect me to do?
    - pessimizer 13y ago
      Or would fewer have pledged? I'd be willing to bet there were a substantial number of people who pledged in order to convince Ubuntu that there was interest in the phone, but knowing that they wouldn't have to commit funds to it right now (at least not permanently.)
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
justincormack 13y ago
Apparently Richard Stallman in the comments saying that Canonical refused to make it a completetly free software platform...
- bru 13y ago
  I think that this is a strategic error from Canonical: a lot of people would like a truly free alternative to Android phones (with open hardware), and this could have been an opportunity to get them to support Edge. Canonical missed it IMHO. See Mark Shuttleworth AMA: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1j166z/hi_im_mark_shuttleworth_founder_of_ubuntu/cba2wga?context=1 http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1j166z/hi_im_mark_shut...
  - justincormack 13y ago
    The state of free graphics drivers for mobile is of course terrible, and Canonical are quite UX driven so there is a big difficulty. They could have made more of an effort with the non graphics parts, which would have helped. I never got the impression they had actually decided what hardware to use - eg it might have been Intel not ARM, as 4G on ARM SoCs is hard to get.
  - pdpi 13y ago
    > I think that this is a strategic error from Canonical: a lot of people would like a truly free alternative to Android phones (with open hardware), and this could have been an opportunity to get them to support Edge. Canonical missed it IMHO. I think you underestimate the echo chamber effect. The number of people who care about FOSS is minuscule, and marketing the Edge to that crowd would dilute the marketing message for everyone else.
    - pessimizer 13y ago
      For the people who care about FOSS you wouldn't have to market that feature, just state it. Also, the people who care about FOSS are loud, and influence people who don't care about FOSS. I think you underestimate the appealing to as many disparate influential groups as possible effect.
samstokes 13y ago
From the article: The project didn't actually raise* any money; a total of $12.2m was pledged, but none would be charged against anyone's credit card (not even the usual few percent from a failed project) under a special arrangement with IndieGoGo.* Not true, as far as I understand it. Certainly my bank statement showed a transaction, and a subsequent refund. I believe the article is correct in that Canonical never saw that money - I understand Indiegogo held onto it until the refund - but it was certainly charged.
- buro9 13y ago
  That's actually one of the things that stopped me from ordering an Edge. I just don't have the cashflow to leave ~£500 in someone else's hands for a lengthy period of time. Would've been happy with a deposit amount and a final bill before dispatch. But when you're paying yourself bare minimum at a startup, the funds just aren't there in my personal finances to tie up a quite significant amount for so long and at relatively short notice.
  - misnome 13y ago
    But this is misunderstanding the point of kickstarter et al - although it may feel like you are just preordering, you are not - and actually funding the development (which could go wrong, and never get anything). It's why people shouldn't be too annoyed/upset if they don't get their items first/cheapest.
    - buro9 13y ago
      The headline would suggest that everyone believed this was pre-ordering. Hence the "How many phones were ordered".
  - justincormack 13y ago
    Then you cant afford the phone surely? Its not cheap, and you are living on a budget, it was pitched as a luxury item pretty much.
    - 13y ago
ozim 13y ago
It was not campain aimed to make Edge. It was marketing and publicity stunt by Canonical to have some data to feed to vendors which supply them with stuff to make Ubuntu phone. It was something like prototype car to show off at exhibition, just to draw attention. They make numbers bigger because that is the main reason behind this campain. Now they have some point of reference, and they can show to suppliers that they are serious. Even if it was 15.000 Edges they know that they have audience. Besides IndieGoGo made couple of dollars on those pledged money as samstokes wrote, put couple of mils (specially not yours) in bank and get the percents, nice.
JohnLBevan 13y ago
Has anyone considered a SCRUM funding model? i.e. Similar to how Patreon's used to fund ongoing deliverables from YouTube artists (among others) the team could have patrons sign up to pay a smaller amount on a fortnightly basis, with the development team announcing their goal for that sprint, then taking funding on delivery. This gives patrons the option to back out further down the project if things go off course/change, thus reducing risk in committing to a failing project, whilst allowing other patrons to sign up down the line as the project starts to look increasingly feasible. Optionally small awards could be given per pledge, whilst larger rewards (e.g. your own phone) given to those who've given a certain amount by the end of the project / the pledged amounts could be discounted from the resulting phone's price.
ohwp 13y ago
Estimations are that Jolla is going to produce a batch of 50,000 units. http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/21/jolla-closes-first-pre-sales/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/21/jolla-closes-first-pre-sale... So I think it's strange Canonical didn't make this happen.
nhangen 13y ago
This is quite nitpicky. A worthless debate over semantics.

35 points by areski 13y ago

It would have been nice if they had some graphs showing projects that reached their goals early. What would have happened if Ubuntu had set the goal at 1 million $? Then most of the backers would have certainty when they backed the project since they knew it would succeed in getting funded! Maybe this would have led to 32 million, maybe not.

archangel_one 13y ago
There are significant fixed costs, you can't just divide the required goal by 32 to produce 1/32 of the number of phones. I'd guess that $1M wouldn't be enough to even produce one of those phones.
- hmottestad 13y ago
  That is a downside yes. The question still remains. Would more people have pledged knowing that the project would get funded? Essentially this would be like preordering it.
  - archangel_one 13y ago
    But the problem is that if it reached the goal of $1M but didn't get far past it, they'd be expected to then supply the phones those people had pledged for without actually having enough money to produce them.
  - freehunter 13y ago
    I've backed Kickstarters only after they've already reached their goal, just for the sake of preordering the product. Yes, Kickstarter and IndieGoGo are not meant to be storefronts and I might be a bad citizen for treating it as such, but the incentive is there. If the developers are going to treat these fundraisers as a place to sell a product, I'm going to use these fundraisers as a place to buy a product. Especially in cases where the Kickstarter product is significantly less than the price of the product when it hits retail. If you tell me I can "buy" your product for $8 on Kickstarter and get the product in the mail weeks before it's officially for sale, or I could wait longer and buy it for $20, what do you expect me to do?
  - pessimizer 13y ago
    Or would fewer have pledged? I'd be willing to bet there were a substantial number of people who pledged in order to convince Ubuntu that there was interest in the phone, but knowing that they wouldn't have to commit funds to it right now (at least not permanently.)
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

justincormack 13y ago

Apparently Richard Stallman in the comments saying that Canonical refused to make it a completetly free software platform...

bru 13y ago
I think that this is a strategic error from Canonical: a lot of people would like a truly free alternative to Android phones (with open hardware), and this could have been an opportunity to get them to support Edge. Canonical missed it IMHO. See Mark Shuttleworth AMA: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1j166z/hi_im_mark_shuttleworth_founder_of_ubuntu/cba2wga?context=1 http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1j166z/hi_im_mark_shut...
- justincormack 13y ago
  The state of free graphics drivers for mobile is of course terrible, and Canonical are quite UX driven so there is a big difficulty. They could have made more of an effort with the non graphics parts, which would have helped. I never got the impression they had actually decided what hardware to use - eg it might have been Intel not ARM, as 4G on ARM SoCs is hard to get.
- pdpi 13y ago
  > I think that this is a strategic error from Canonical: a lot of people would like a truly free alternative to Android phones (with open hardware), and this could have been an opportunity to get them to support Edge. Canonical missed it IMHO. I think you underestimate the echo chamber effect. The number of people who care about FOSS is minuscule, and marketing the Edge to that crowd would dilute the marketing message for everyone else.
  - pessimizer 13y ago
    For the people who care about FOSS you wouldn't have to market that feature, just state it. Also, the people who care about FOSS are loud, and influence people who don't care about FOSS. I think you underestimate the appealing to as many disparate influential groups as possible effect.

samstokes 13y ago

From the article: The project didn't actually raise* any money; a total of $12.2m was pledged, but none would be charged against anyone's credit card (not even the usual few percent from a failed project) under a special arrangement with IndieGoGo.* Not true, as far as I understand it. Certainly my bank statement showed a transaction, and a subsequent refund. I believe the article is correct in that Canonical never saw that money - I understand Indiegogo held onto it until the refund - but it was certainly charged.

buro9 13y ago
That's actually one of the things that stopped me from ordering an Edge. I just don't have the cashflow to leave ~£500 in someone else's hands for a lengthy period of time. Would've been happy with a deposit amount and a final bill before dispatch. But when you're paying yourself bare minimum at a startup, the funds just aren't there in my personal finances to tie up a quite significant amount for so long and at relatively short notice.
- misnome 13y ago
  But this is misunderstanding the point of kickstarter et al - although it may feel like you are just preordering, you are not - and actually funding the development (which could go wrong, and never get anything). It's why people shouldn't be too annoyed/upset if they don't get their items first/cheapest.
  - buro9 13y ago
    The headline would suggest that everyone believed this was pre-ordering. Hence the "How many phones were ordered".
- justincormack 13y ago
  Then you cant afford the phone surely? Its not cheap, and you are living on a budget, it was pitched as a luxury item pretty much.
  - 13y ago

ozim 13y ago

It was not campain aimed to make Edge. It was marketing and publicity stunt by Canonical to have some data to feed to vendors which supply them with stuff to make Ubuntu phone. It was something like prototype car to show off at exhibition, just to draw attention. They make numbers bigger because that is the main reason behind this campain. Now they have some point of reference, and they can show to suppliers that they are serious. Even if it was 15.000 Edges they know that they have audience. Besides IndieGoGo made couple of dollars on those pledged money as samstokes wrote, put couple of mils (specially not yours) in bank and get the percents, nice.

JohnLBevan 13y ago

Has anyone considered a SCRUM funding model? i.e. Similar to how Patreon's used to fund ongoing deliverables from YouTube artists (among others) the team could have patrons sign up to pay a smaller amount on a fortnightly basis, with the development team announcing their goal for that sprint, then taking funding on delivery. This gives patrons the option to back out further down the project if things go off course/change, thus reducing risk in committing to a failing project, whilst allowing other patrons to sign up down the line as the project starts to look increasingly feasible. Optionally small awards could be given per pledge, whilst larger rewards (e.g. your own phone) given to those who've given a certain amount by the end of the project / the pledged amounts could be discounted from the resulting phone's price.

ohwp 13y ago

Estimations are that Jolla is going to produce a batch of 50,000 units. http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/21/jolla-closes-first-pre-sales/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/21/jolla-closes-first-pre-sale... So I think it's strange Canonical didn't make this happen.

nhangen 13y ago

This is quite nitpicky. A worthless debate over semantics.