I guess they just didn't find investors. Jolla managed to do it because they have expertise and accumulated knowledge in the field. Canonical don't have that.
Wrong guess I'm afraid. We (Canonical) haven't announced any hardware or network partners for a general market launch.
Ubuntu Edge isn't aimed at the mass market. It's a special limited edition hardware platform which accelerates lots of interesting hardware technology combined with the Ubuntu phone. So it's designed for developers or technology enthusiasts who really value cutting edge innovation.
Then it's not so surprising, that going with extra high end non common device before releasing one available for common users didn't attract investors. It looks very risky.
Canonical had to start with practical and common device, before going into super experimental one. And with resources from the first, go for more experiments.
I didn't follow Mozilla closely on this, but I'm not sure if they design their own hardware. As far as I know they are using existing one from partners (correct me if I'm wrong). I.e. they took a few shortcuts to make things easier for them.
