Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, has broken a crowdfunding record with their Edge smartphone project on Kickstarter. The phone has received pledges equal to $10,288,472 which is far more than any other project has seen from a crowdfunding project.
Although Canonical is doing well and has raised a whole lot of money, they are still $20 million away from reaching their required goal of $32 million. Plus, they are now left with just six days to complete the crowdfunding and reach that goal or else the project will not result in an actual product to go to market with.
If they are successful and end up reaching their $32 million goal–seems unlikely that they will–Canonical says that it should be able to produce 40,000 units by next May to be delivered. Although they are asking for a lot of money, the Ubuntu Edge is not actually a phone that Canonical wants to beat the iPhone or Galaxy S4 with. Instead, the Edge is meant to be a premium-level phone for enthusiasts but not regular consumers.
Bloomberg made a surprise announcement last week when he announced that he had donated $80,000 to the project with hopes that it could enhance mobile computing and push the industry forward in the right direction. One of the neat things about the device is that it is very powerful compared to current smartphones on the market. Therefore, users can dock the Ubuntu Edge and connect it to a monitor with the ability to receive a full Ubuntu desktop experience.
Independent fundraising campaigns have been able to produce a higher amount of funding than what the Ubuntu Edge currently has but it has broken the record for Kickstart and Indiegogo campaigns. People were unsure as to whether or not any manufacturer would be interested in the Edge but according to Canonical, they already have some manufactures talking to them about the device.