It's been a week since Canonical launched a public campaign in a bid to raise $32 million to build its new Ubuntu Edge smartphone, and more than $7 million has been raised. However, this should not be taken as an indication of the sure-fire success of the smartphone, says tech analyst Liron Segev.
Canonical, founded by South African billionaire Mark Shuttleworth, launched the campaign as a fixed funding project, which means it's all or nothing, and it has 24 days left to achieve its goal.
Segev says it is highly likely the company will raise the money in time. "Money won't be an issue because it is such a global product with such a global appeal," he says. "And there seems to be quite a lot of appetite especially in mobile, portability and open source. So [the Ubuntu Edge] ticks all the right boxes."
He notes, however, that the success of the smartphone will not be reliant on whether the campaign manages to raise $32 million, but rather on the uptake of the product. "If it's very well accepted worldwide, passes all the initial testing, and gets accepted on the networks, then people will buy it if the price is right. But if they [Canonical] are going to keep the price as is, it's going to be quite a hard sale."
The Ubuntu Edge smartphone comes at a price of $830 upfront or a bundle price of $1 400 for two. Users can also fork out $10 000 to receive one of the first 50 Ubuntu Edge smartphones expected to roll off the production line, in May 2014, including e-mail access to the designers and engineers building the phone and a VIP invite to join Shuttleworth at the unveiling event.
Segev remains unconvinced. "There's nothing absolutely wow about this phone that makes you willing to pay that price. For R9 000 you can pretty much pick up any top-end phone on the market. It's a very big barrier for most markets with a price that high for something that doesn't have such a unique benefit that you absolutely must have it."
Superphone?
The self-described "superphone" will be wrapped in a metal outer casing, featuring an 11.4cm screen covered by sapphire glass. According to Canonical, the Edge will have the "fastest available multi-core mobile processor", 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. It will also feature a dual-LTE chip inside and dual-boot both the Ubuntu phone OS and Android.
Segev notes Ubuntu's open source nature is a noted benefit for the Ubuntu Edge, because when it comes to smartphones "it all boils down to the apps".
"Hardware is one thing, but if your hardware is awesome with no apps, your phone is not going to go anywhere."
He also dismisses industry concerns regarding the phone's inability to run Windows, seeing that one of its key features is the ability to become a desktop PC when it is docked. "You can download Ubuntu right now and run it on your desktop as an OS. So having the phone not run Microsoft Windows is not an issue."
Segev points out, however, that a smartphone's ability to become a PC when docked is nothing new and not guaranteed to be an effective selling point. "When you are working on a mobile phone, you expect a certain experience. When you are working on your desktop, you want a different experience - something that's fast, has lot of hard drive space and lots of memory so you can run all your high-end applications. This phone is not going to be able to do that."
However, Canonical has so far proved its ability to get the Ubuntu Edge from concept to design to prototype, which creates confidence in its ability to raise the money for production, he says.
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