Ubuntu’s Edge smartphone is destined to be a boutique product appealing to a pretty limited number of Unix fans, hence its status as a crowdfunded Indiegogo campaign . That campaign was stalling after an incredibly successful first day, but some fresh life has just been injected into it via Bloomberg LP. The publisher has pledged a total of $80,000 to secure itself some of the final devices.

The pledge is said to be something of a record, and means Bloomberg is thinking of acquiring roughly 100 phones for its staff, along with access to online support and so on.

Bloomberg’s maneuver will definitely shine some much needed light on the project, but it’s unlikely to make a dramatic impact on Ubuntu’s fortunes: Pledges have slowed to such a rate that the company will have to attract nearly $1.7 million in new pledges per day for the remaining 14 days of the project to reach its sky-high $32 million goal. It’s not impossible, as the incredible enthusiasm seen in donations to the Pebble smartwatch project suggest.

Given the relative success ratios of crowdfunding campaigns on Indiegogo and Kickstarter, maybe Ubuntu chose the wrong platform?

[Image: Indiegogo]