One of the things that's interesting about the phone industry is that in general there's no equivalent of the special tech-focused PC platforms. So Ubuntu Edge is a way to unlock both a new software platform (Ubuntu phone) but also to bring forward a set of hardware technologies that won't be in the mainstream for a while.

It's a really high target caused by how expensive these platforms are to manufacture. But if we can get enough interest it will allow us to bring a great new phone to market!

ps I work for Canonical so should be considered a bit biased ;-)