Ubuntu Smartphone Shipping in October

http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2013/02/06/ubuntu-smartphone-shipping-in-october/

by ergo14 • 13 years ago

76 27 13 years ago

blogs.wsj.com

Apocryphon• 13 years ago

Between this, Windows Phone 8, Firefox OS, Open webOS, and a resurgent BBOS, 2013 is going to be a race for third place on mobile.

bsimpson• 13 years ago

I'd love to see a good showing by any of them, but so far they've all launched with a thud.

spinchange• 13 years ago

I look for this to be the year of cross platform portability even for native apps. The only entity not playing along is Apple.

vy8vWJlco• 13 years ago

So to summarize, the Wall Street Journal and two talking heads (apart from Mark Shuttleworth) are skeptical of Ubuntu ("a Linux-based operating system used to run servers and other infrastructure in many corporate IT departments") on phones for the following reasons:

1) Ubuntu's "popularity among open source developers"

2) Ubuntu is all-or-nothing and "switching to an all-Ubuntu-based environment wouldn't make sense for many organizations", unless you "employ large numbers of Linux developers" (see 1).

3) "[T]he real challenge is overcoming this very large BYOD phenomenon" since bringing your own device precludes bringing an Ubuntu phone.

4) "It seems overly complicated to me"

facorreia• 13 years ago

That says more about WSJ than it says about Ubuntu on mobile...

codex4• 13 years ago

Mark my words: this phone will be an utter failure. "Linux" or "Ubuntu" aren't some magic talismans you can apply to any product and make it great; in fact, it takes a lot of hard work, design talent, and money to make a phone, and Canonical does not have the last two, possibly the last three.

rogerbinns3• 13 years ago

What do you consider failure? eg would you count 10 million units as a failure?

I do agree with your sentiments and would be surprised if they even managed to sell 100k units. The problem is I can't see who would want it to actually succeed. There isn't anything in it for hardware manufacturers unless they have a large guaranteed order. And since Ubuntu uses the Android kernel, the manufacturer will have to do an Android bring up no matter what.

For the carriers it might be a useful bargaining chip but they can already play Android, Windows, Blackberry etc against each other. A retailer would need to make sufficient additional revenue to justify the costs of additional training of its staff. App developers would ultimately need to get paid, and a large installed base is very conducive to that. Canonical have approximately zero credit cards on file. Google also do kickbacks to carriers when someone on their network purchases from the Play store.

dscrd• 13 years ago

>And since Ubuntu uses the Android kernel,

The Android kernel?

bad_user2• 13 years ago

What's with all this negativity? It's the easiest thing in the world to criticise and most people are naysayers because of that, but if the ones that actually build stuff would listen to all of this criticism then nothing would get done.

> it takes a lot of hard work, design talent, and money

So freaking what? Besides fart apps, all other projects need hard work, design talent and money. That didn't stop projects from succeeded without design talent and/or money, with hard work as a substitute for both.

Android sucked up until version 2.3. Did that stop it from being a success? And sure, Android had good timing too, but the current market for smartphones and tablets is only getting started and will be much larger than it currently is. I can also see phone manufacturers being afraid of Google's or Microsoft's grip on the platform ... Samsung for instance is pouring resources into Bada, just in case.

Personally I think Firefox OS has a much better chance of succeeding as an alternative to Android, but at the very least I'm not ready to lambast Canonical for trying. The world needs more builders and less naysayers.

codex4• 13 years ago

Let me put it another way: it pains me to see mediocre companies like Canonical chase the latest fad with "me too" products. If more people could recognize failure ahead of time, perhaps we would get more true innovation somewhere else, or at least real attempts at home run, big bet initiatives. The world is full of opportunities to make original contributions. Look at Elon Musk: he may fail, but at least he is a prime mover.

mercurial• 13 years ago

Personally I have a hard time believing either will gain significant market share (much as I would like them to). Even Microsoft, a much larger company with huge brand recognition and what people seem to think is a well-executed product (never tried a Windows phone myself) keeps failing. But best of luck to them. Having a dockable smartphone would be fantastic... if you could switch to xmonad on the desktop :)

Argorak3• 13 years ago

I will mark them, but you quick dismissal of the Ubuntu teams design ability strikes me as odd.

All Canonical websites are very nice, Unity is a great looking and consistent shell (even if some people disagree with the overall concept) and current descriptions of Ubuntu Phone really showed that they poured a lot of knowledge into them. And then, Canonical lacks design talent?

Shorel3• 13 years ago

iOS runs fast native Apps, while Android runs in a VM. This makes iOS faster and/or more battery efficient. This speed/performance attracts users.

On the other hand iOS is a closed system while Android is open. An open system attracts developers.

Ubuntu has potentially both technical advantages. It will have fast native Apps, it already has a Ubuntu store, it has Ubuntu One (similar to Dropbox / Skydrive) and it will be more open than either of iOS or Android.

And Ubuntu has proven that they can deliver, with Unity in the desktop. I'm using it right now (inside a VM running on Windows 7) and honestly is the best Linux I have ever used both in the desktop and as a server in AWS.

The only reason I can think for a Ubuntu phone failure is total lack of carriers interested in the product (I think more than one chinese company will jump with full force to Ubuntu, remember the so called Alibaba OS), or a half assed launch/support (again it would be the carriers fault, and it would be only relevant in USA).

If I had spare money I would propose a longbet against you ^_^

dylangs1030• 13 years ago

This is way too ambitious, way too soon for Canonical.

I don't think it will fail. I'm sure Canonical's done a lot of market research and, if nothing else, knows it will sell on geek appeal to a lot of people, hackers included.

But it will be laughably unable to compete with iOS and Android. Apple is decades old as a company and designed a phone after it had hit something of a plateau between OS X and revolutionizing music (by that I mean they had fully established themselves and could spend time on another project, not that they were beyond further innovation).

Canonical has not hit a plateau with Ubuntu, and tackling smartphones is more ambitious than the droves of companies looking to do it now would have you think.

I think this will be similar to what happened with Windows 8 - tweaking the desktop version of software to fit a tablet/phone until neither is a complete package anymore.

Swannie• 13 years ago

Android was made by a company far smaller then Canonical.

Canonical's OS and Android share the same Linux heritage. Canonical has proved it is able of writing a window manager. Linux is pretty advanced to support low power mobile devices. I'd say that Canonical stand a very good chance, as they stand on top of all the Android work done so far.

Edit: Anyway, Smartphone is the new desktop for 80% of users

Shorel3• 13 years ago

Except that Windows 8 did no tweaking, MS decided that tablets and phones need a new WinRT API and tried to make Win32 obsolete.

olenhad• 13 years ago

I can't predict whether the phone would sell to a mainstream audience, but as a developer I can't wait to get my hands on this and hack on it. If command line access is a first class citizen, and I produce my own scripts to control the phone's IO devices, I'll be more than happy.

lucb1e• 13 years ago

You speak my thoughts sir. I wonder if there are enough developers that would buy the phone to make it profitable... hmm or do we need that? Perhaps if it's not profitable for Caronical, the open source community can continue on it.

Probably only pretty dedicated developers will buy it though, most will still go with the mainstream option because it's the easiest. I mean, how many devs carry iPhones?

Ubuntu Smartphone Shipping in October

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