NEWS TECH : Ubuntu tries to raise $32M for Edge smartphone

 

Still, Canonical is not disappointed. The Ubuntu smartphone mission is still "full steam ahead" Silber said, and thanks to Indiegogo, the Edge whipped up interest to the tune of 11,000 supporters, snatching away the record from the Pebble smartwatch by a cool $2.6 million. It was an excellent display of demand for a never-before-seen device, and that in and of itself accomplished an important mission in sending a signal to handset makers.

Because in the view of Canonical and Shuttleworth -- who handed the CEO role off to Silber in 2010 to focus on product development -- smartphone behemoths like Samsung and Apple are no longer capable of groundbreaking innovation due to the amount of risk entailed with trying to scale such innovations to millions of units. That limits those companies. The Ubuntu Edge was supposed to break through the glass and bring the concept of convergence to the market far sooner than what would have been feasible in a world without crowdfunding.

In an online marketplace where any idea, no matter how out there, can become reality if enough supporters jump on board, mobile innovation could find its new best friends in Kickstarter and Indiegogo. "Everyone's getting more and more CPUs in some form or another, and at the same time [there's] a countertrend that you need and want less [devices]," Silber said. "I think both are valid trends...I think we're in for a period of real innovation and disruptive change."

But the Canonical CEO is quick to recognize the contributions of tech titans like Apple and Microsoft, which she says are contributing in very pivotal ways to the philosophy behind convergence through the blurring of the lines between mobile and desktop experiences. They may be moving slow, but "those companies absolutely play in the world," she said, noting how Microsoft and Apple's user experience has begun over the last few years to bring a uniformity to computing that is device-agnostic.

The possibilities for convergence are endless, especially given the advent of wearable technology. Silber wouldn't say whether an Ubuntu Edge-like device or, say, a smartwatch might become the future nexus of our computing lives in 5 or 10 years' time. But whatever may be coming next, the important matter is realizing the best avenue to jump-start it into existence. For Canonical, that's become abundantly clear.