His plan is to make it easy for smartphone users to use their devices as back-up PC’s. In the process he will be taking on the likes of Blackberry and Apple.
A statement by Canonical, Shuttleworth’s company in the UK, phone manufacturers drive sales of multicore phones with faster processors, more RAM and high-end graphics. They also offer accessories such as docks, cables, keyboards and displays. The new Ubuntu operating system will run on even the “leanest” Smartphones, with as little as 512MB of RAM and a 1GHz Cortex A9 processor; Web apps based on HTML5 and native apps developed for the platform using its software development kit.
Shuttleworth plans to use the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to show off his software and talk to potential hardware and operator partners and software developers. Canonical says more than 20-million PCs already use Ubuntu Linux. It hopes that about 10 percent of the world’s new desktops and laptops will be shipped with Ubuntu next year.
“We are confident that Ubuntu will ship on phones from large manufacturers,” says Shuttleworth.
Shuttleworth created Ubuntu after spending $20 million on a trip into space; becoming the first African tourist in space. (We always thought it would be the security guard at Koeberg Nuclear Power Station – Ed)
In March 2004 he formed Canonical to promote and commercially support free software projects. He had earlier sold his Cape Town-based start-up Thawte Consulting, which provided digital certificates for websites, to VeriSign for $575 million in 1999 before creating emerging-market investment group HBD Venture Capital in year 2000.
