Canonical's Edge smartphone campaign on Indiegogo has successfully raised over $10.8 million. Last we heard, Canonical had lowered the price of its smartphone in an effort to boost funding. The company recently lowered the price of the Edge to $695 instead of the full $830 price set when the Ubuntu Edge Indiegogo project launched on July 22. Though the $10 million figure is nothing to sniff at, it's more than a smidgen shy of the project's $32 million goal, and with only five days left in the campaign, it's unlikely Canonical will raise the money it had hoped for.
The campaign expires on August 21. However, Canonical is hopeful that the attention Edge is receiving will attract the interest of manufacturers. Last week, Bloomberg became the first corporate backer, pledging $80,000. Canonical notes that it has also broken the record for largest ever amount sourced from crowdfunding (previously held by Pebble Watch over Kickstarter with $10,266,844). Since the phone doesn't actually exist yet, we're reluctant to tear the title away from Pebble, but if Canonical manages to attract a big name investor, that could change.
"When we started this campaign three weeks ago, we hoped it would resonate with our community. So, to break the world record for a crowdfunding campaign is absolutely mind-blowing," said Canonical CEO Jane Silber. "We felt that innovation had substantially slowed down in the mobile industry, so wanted to address this. We're still astonished by the generosity of our community and will continue to do all we can to make the Ubuntu Edge a reality."
The Ubuntu Edge will offer dual-boot support, allowing the user to load up either Ubuntu Mobile or Android. However, when docked with a monitor, the phone will transform into a full Ubuntu desktop. Because of this, not only will it need the latest and fastest components, but 128 GB of storage by default. The company also expects to use a quad-core SoC and at least 4 GB of RAM.
