Discussion Forums > Technology
$32 million Crowd Funding for Android/Ubuntu phone
kitamesume:
40,000 x $800 = $32M
and yes theres a profit margin around 50%, raw material price is roughly $350 plus manufacturing costs.
but i'd consider the raw profit margin as allowance from any other form of anomalies.
i don't see it that way, he wants investors in exchange for the phones, what he gains is his company's growth, in a sense he wants a risk free profit.
"free profit" in a sense that his company nor him did not participate in any of the investment.
edit: also, theres other profits he gained in this project, Edge itself is a form of advertisement, canonical didn't need to shell out anything for this free advertisement.
even if Edge fails it already did its other purpose, to attract investors and participants.
Gh0st93:
--- Quote from: kitamesume on August 13, 2013, 09:27:01 PM ---even if Edge fails it already did its other purpose, to attract investors and participants.
--- End quote ---
Exactly we have now turned full circle back to the initial point, If the Edge happens cool that would be great in basically every sense, If not still great publicity.
sawakosadako:
If what you're saying is true, I would call him a genius rather than a man who can't bear to take a risk. Just as I would call Steve Jobs and Bill Gates even though they're both a thieves. Beside if we're talking about open source is all about donation (crowd-funding) so I don't see any problem in this.
An article about Ubuntu Edge battery. Damn, I would love to have one of this on my laptop. You could run a laptop up to 20 hours with this.
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2008/january9/nanowire-010908.html
kitamesume:
the article you linked was from 2007, if it was as practical as they said it would've already been present by now.
Bob2004:
Kitamesume, as someone who knows a hell of a lot more about business than you clearly do, I feel it is important for me to let you know that you are talking out of your arse, and Gh0st93 is, for the most part, absolutely correct.
Not to mention the fact that, why the hell would he want to pay the $32 million himself? What this crowd funding is paying for is designing and building one, limited-edition, one-off phone, which will be sold at a profit. They have clearly worked things out and judged that they need to sell a given number of units at a given price (originally this was 40,000 at $800) in order for it to make a worthwhile profit, and so they set the goal at $32m (800x40,000).
Now, this is a new untested product, from a small company which doesn't have the assets, infrastructure, skills, or money to be able to design, build, and then market a phone like Samsung, Apple, etc do. Not to mention, the phone's main selling point is a new platform which is, as yet, untested in the market. It's a big risk. So, a crowd-funding drive to see if enough people are willing to buy it for it to make a reasonable profit is a very logical idea. In fact, IMO it's a genius idea, because it also gives them a way of gauging market interest in the Ubuntu mobile platform as a whole which they intend to bring to market in the future anyway, as well as demonstrating to the phone manufacturers and networks who they need to get on board that there is a demand for Ubuntu mobile.
Even if the crowd funding fails, as seems likely, it will still have been a success for the company because it's given them some assurance that they are going to be able to successfully market Ubuntu mobile, it has generated plenty of hype and advertising for it, and it has clearly helped them gain the support they need from manufacturers and phone networks (which is why they've now been able to lower the price). A very good return on the relatively small amount this campaign would have cost to set up.
So, yes. He could pay Canonical $32m if he wanted 40,000 phones to give away as birthday presents or something, but it would be a foolish and unnecessary risk if he wanted to try and sell them.
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