Should large companies use crowd funding?

When people start businesses or a new project that will be released for consumer adoption, there is a good amount of investment that has to be put into it. Not only in time and effort, but in money as well.

Traditionally, you either would use the funds and resources you have saved up or you would try to get a loan. Or, some cases, look for a venture capitalist. But what do you do if no bank will give you a loan or you cant find investors to fund your project or business? 

Kickerstarter, as well as indiegogo has become hugely popular in having projects crowd funded these days. Most recently, Canonical, which is the company behind Ubuntu, has launched a indiegogo campaign to raise a unprecedented 32 million dollars for the Ubuntu Edge. Even though Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth has a net worth of over 500 million

Crowd funding has become a great resource for everyday people use the power of the internet to have hundreds, if not thousands of people donate to their project. But should large companies like Canonical, who have the cash in hand to fund their project, ask others to pay for it? You also have people in Hollywood like director Spike Lee who is asking to have his next movie crowd funded. Spike Lee is asking for a little over a million dollars, even though he has a net worth of 40 million dollars. 

Crowd funding has been great to help small companies and "regular" people and projects come to fruition, which otherwise would probably not see past early prototypes. The Ouya, which is set top gaming console based on the Android operation system, was crowd funded and is now on the shelves of the stores like Best Buy. That is a great example how a product, which was pretty much barely out of concept phase made it to the main stream stores.

Now, there are perks people get for donating. Usually when they "donate" the amount the product, will probably get the product before it officially goes on sale. In the case of Ubuntu Edge, the 20 dollar pledges get their name listed a "founder".

I have a question for the large companies and individuals who can acquire the funds for their project easily. Are you only trying not to pay for your new product to get developed, or do you not believe it in enough to pay for it yourself?

Ubuntu Edge, X86 or go home

For those who are not aware, Ubuntu by Canonical is the one of, the not the most popular Linux distributions out there. Ubuntu is great for beginners going into Linux, especially if they do not know much about command line.

Recently, Canonical announced their ambitious 32,000,000 Indi GoGo campaign to fun Ubuntu Edge. A smart phone that is supposed to bridge the gap between mobile device/phone and desktop computer. Something Mark Shuttleworth is calling "convergence". This "phone" will boast a 2.4Ghz quad core processor and 4GB of RAM. That is just shy of the specs of my home computer. At of the time of the posting of this blog, the are into their second week and have passed the 7,000,000 mark.

Its an ambitious goal and though I did not contribute to this funding campaign, mostly due to lack of funds, I hope it brings them success. But, I unfortunately feel that this is doomed for failure.

In a previous blog post I wrote entitled "The Idea of Convergence", I go into my thoughts on if bridging between mobile and home computing. But that is not the reason I think this is doomed for failure, it all has to do with application compatibility.

Last year, Microsoft's Windows 8 launched with Windows 8RT. The main problem with Windows 8RT was their tablet operating system and run on a ARM processor, as opposed to an X86 processor, which all home computers and "normal" Windows runs on as well.

That is where windows screwed the pooch on Windows 8. They came out with an operating system that "looked" identical to its X86 counterpart. Something that confused a lot of people why they could not install their "legacy" applications.

I know the Ubuntu Edge will be dual booting Android for the phone and using Ubuntu for "desktop". But, since it will probably be running on an ARM processor, they will find themselves in the same boat as people did with Windows RT.

I know this first generation is supposed to be for the backers only. But, if I cannot really see "power" users using this as their main computing device, since a lot of applications that people rely on do not run on ARM yet.

I will say this though, for everyday computing, like web browsing, emailing and things of that nature, I think this will do well for a lot of people who do not mind having their computer and phone in the same device.

The idea of "Convergence"

The way we compute have come a long way. Even for me, who didn't get his first computer until I was in the mid 90's when I had 486 or 586 computer. I forget which kind. To give you an idea of this powerhouse of computer. It had a whopping 40 megabyte hard drive and I think I had like 4 megs of ram. So, no it couldn't play Crysis.

Fast forward to today, where most of us carry phones that have more computing power then the NASA Shuttle program had when they started in the 80's. Even my phone, A Samsung Galaxy S2, which is now considered low to mid-grade by today's standards has a 1.2 dual core processor with 1GB of Ram, with 8GB on board storage.

Modern phones, or "Smart Phones" do meet a lot of peoples computing needs and it has been thrown around and even proof of concepts have come out about merging the phone and computer. A term, which is being called "convergence". Mark Shuttleworth of Canonical is really pushing this idea, so much Canonical has setup a IndiGoGO campaign to raise a whopping 32 million dollars to fund this effort with Canonical's "Ubuntu Edge". Canonical is also the company behind the Linux Ubuntu Desktop Operating system

Its a promising idea and a great concept. A merge between phone and computer. Literally your computer in your pocket and when you need to use it a "computer" you dock the phone in the docking station and now can use your keyboard, mouse, monitor, ect.

According to the video from IndiGoGo, Mark Shuttleworth stated that this will only be for the backers to the fund and they might come out every new with a new model. That is, partly his reasoning for having the entire project funded by "crowd funding". Mark Shuttleworth did not go into if those future models will be crowd funded though.

Though, I think its great idea and something that should be looked into and is probably the future of main stream computing, but for me, I like my phone as my "phone" and my desktop/laptop for my "computer". If you lose your phone, like it tends to happen with smaller devices that fit in your pocket, your computer and phone is now gone. I know a lot of people have insurance on their phone, but if you use your new phone/computer as your phone and regular computer, you are now SOL and all your non cloud data is gone. Not to mention the fact that since people usually do not encrypt their devices, let alone put a pass code to access your phone, all that personal/business data is now available. I guess I am old codger when it comes to this, but this is something that people have to think about if they are going to go full bore into this "convergence".

I would say that this would a great way as an additional device. Like how people use a tablet to complement their laptop or desktop computer. But i would not, for me anyways, use this as my only device for all of my computing and phone needs. If you only use this, your are literally putting all your eggs in one basket.