I’ve used Ubuntu, the Linux desktop “for humans”, before. In fact, for several months it was my primary OS and I loved it.
Now, the South African-based CEO of Ubuntu (pronounced /ʊˈbʊntuː/ uu-buun-too) wants you to consider leveraging Ubuntu as your core for all your computing–all stemming from your smartphone–and all powered by the Cloud.
Jason Perlow at ZDNet explains some of the move:
In a video posted to YouTube this week, a very Bono-like Shuttleworth, channelling his inner Jony Ive and Steve Jobs, spoke at length about the mobile version of the company’s open-source and Linux-based operating system, Ubuntu for tablets. The OS will be entering a preview release shortly that will be installable on selected Android hardware, such as Google’s Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 tablets and Galaxy Nexus phone.
The mobile version of Ubuntu has spent a long time in gestation. Canonical is entering the tablet and smartphone market five years after industry leaders Apple, Google, Microsoft and BlackBerry all carved out their respective chunks of the consumer and enterprise pie for mobile operating system mindshare.
…it is what Shuttleworth said toward the end of this video that I found most compelling, and I think what he speaks about in general can be considered in a platform-agnostic form as being very prescient about the future state of mobile and desktop computing.
For me, if Ubuntu can cross the chasm of hardware (which they are doing by allowing you to use the best hardware from leading Android phone/tablet makers) and they can ensure the devices are speedy enough and reliable enough that Joe/Jane User intuitively think of reaching for them over anything else–AAAAND if they can run the apps people want (which currently allows for HTML5 and frameworks like PhoneGap as well as native, graphics-heavy app development infrastructure) — this might just work.
Maybe.
What do you think?
