As a very vocal and fervent supporter of the Edge campaign is really pains me to say that it is going to fail. I am starting to doubt that Canonical ever had the intention to release this phone or if it was just a marketing ploy to get carrier interest as not enough of them joined the CAG before the deadline.
Looking at the marketing and planning done on this project there has been a HUGE disconnect between what the ideals of the project are and what actually has happened. I am very disappointed in the marketing and pre-sales support for this campaign. 2 weeks into the promotion there was a image added, favourably, comparing the Edge specs and price to the S4 and IPhone. TWO WEEKS? I was arguing this point to people from day one why did it take 2 weeks for canonical to add this to their campaign? The $600 option sold out in a matter of hours, it was insane, I was watching the funded value going up $100k every minute and practically cheering it along. I get the Edge is bleeding edge hardware and is a high value device but people in this economic climate cannot afford $830 on a device which is vaporware. Running an OS and brand new amazing features with convergence which too is vaporware. I say vaporware because we have been waiting for Ubuntu for Android for YEARS! I mean the Ubuntu website even states: "Ubuntu is the killer app for multi-core phones in 2012" ????? Which person at Canonical is responsible for that page? ( http://www.ubuntu.com/phone/ubuntu-for-android) It's 2013 I still don't even have a alpha/beta image of AOSP with Ubuntu for Android to play with. We have given Google and Apple the inspiration to overtake Ubuntu's convergence vision by the time it's released and people who would have funded this project would have been more inclined to do so if they had something real to play with. I also understand that this project is geared towards people like me but again not everyone can just drop this kind of cash in one month. I saw repeated arguments online stating that if there was one more month they would have funded this. People need time to save up for something like this, build it up in their heads (and spouses heads) and convince themselves of the doubts but that takes time and having at least one extra month to plan finances really helps. I personally bought one of the first phones at $600, paid my $30 shipping and dropped an extra $20 for support. But when my cousin wanted one he could not afford any of the options. So I loaned him the cash to buy the $775 option with $30 delivery. He can afford it over time but not right now. Many many people do not buy mobile gadgets straight up, they get them on contract and pay for it over years. So that brings me back to this point. The initial pricing structure and subsequent backpedaling, after online backlash, was very badly planned. It would have been much better for the project if this was handled in a different way. Firstly the price for the device should have been fixed to something around $700 across the board for the entire project. or even $650. make it lower than what it would cost the build the device and rely on donations to make it actually possible. What we would have found was that better perks and lower costs of the device would have gotten 40k phones sold instantly, at the same rate the first day was going. Then as the project timeline went on, people who had already funded the phone would feel more compelled to add an extra few dollars here and there to make this happen. I would do that! If I bought the phone for a good price of $700 and I see that the last week there is a bit of a lull I would have added an extra $50-$100 to make sure it happens! This combined with decent perks would have made this campaign a success. When I mean decent perks then I mean this one off $50 t-shirt perk is an afterthought and an insult. We should have had perks like this: $10 - Ubuntu Pen $15 - Ubuntu CD $20 - Pens and stickers $30 - Pens, stickers and CD $50 - T-shirt $70 - pens, stickers, cd and shirt $100 - Ubuntu backpack $160 - All of the above $200 - 128GB of UbuntuOne for a year (to match the phone storage) $350 - All of the above $500 - Free Ubuntu Desktop support for a year $700 - Edge Phone $1000 - All of the above On the $80k perk. What kind of consultation options did companies have regarding this? From the comments online canonical was not even responding to any queries about this? This is really bad, what faith does this give corporates to even consider this device at all if pre-sales support is shocking? What about after sales support?? People I know who have Canonical support contracts aren't very impressed but these could be anecdotal so I might disregard them. I think having all the extra perks in between and an affordable hardware device would have made this campaign a great success instead of this convoluted mess that it is now. People are laughing behind Canonical's back! I was very active on Google+ during the first few days evangelizing the project and trying to explain to people that this device is worth it and all of the suggestions above come from conversations on there and reading comments all over the web. The amount of times I had to compare the prices of the S4 and IPhone to help put it in perspective is just ridiculous. I felt like a parrot so I wrote my own campaign post, one that I felt would have convinced people from the start. Many many people do GET IT however those people are just not enough to make me think that this campaign is going to raise anything over $10million. Like I said from the marketing and planning side of things it feels like this was a bit of a chance taken on Canonical's side and that it was just a secondary goal to actually make this phone happen. The primary goal of this campaign was free publicity about Ubuntu Touch, Ubuntu for Android and showing the mobile providers who have not joined the CAG that there is big interest in this. Whether that was a good idea or not is still to be seen. They did get T-Mobile to jump aboard and the whole internet is talking about, even if it's not all great. I really hope there is someone somewhere at canonical reading this and thinking these ideas make sense, and perhaps go back to drawing board and pulling off a PROPER record breaking crowd funding miracle next month, with same hardware, and let it run over 2 months instead of one so people can scrape their pennies together and make it happen. And seriously give us Ubuntu for Android already so we can play with it. When I see Jono sharing videos of some guy at Canonical running it for 2 months already I am thinking, why is that not me? Why can I not put it on my Nexus 4 and show it to people who might jump at this opportunity to have the best hardware and software on their little superphones of the future! TL;DR Go back and read it, someone has to especially if your email ends with @ canonical.com Thanks On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 11:09 AM, crack.mech <[email protected]> wrote: > I don't think thats Canonical's intentions. They would build the phone > ONLY if people want that phone. > > > > On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 2:09 PM, Николай Шатохин <[email protected]>wrote: > >> Сanonical can add the missing money before the end. But this very little >> scenario. >> >> >> 2013/8/6 Robert Park <[email protected]> >> >>> On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 9:53 PM, Nathan Haines <[email protected]>wrote: >>> >>>> They can't just lower the specs, because then they won't be delivering >>>> the product that people paid for. >>> >>> >>> THANK YOU. If canonical were to announce a drop in specs, I'd pretty >>> much immediately take my $600 back and then spend just $300 on the Nexus 4, >>> since that already exists, and already has mid-level specs. I pledged my >>> $600 specifically because I *want* a desktop in my pocket. >>> >>> -- >>> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-phone >>> Post to : [email protected] >>> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-phone >>> More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp >>> >>> >> >> -- >> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-phone >> Post to : [email protected] >> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-phone >> More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp >> >> > > -- > Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-phone > Post to : [email protected] > Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-phone > More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp > >
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