Canonical pulls out of the mobile industry, cites lack of interest in convergence

Shawn Knight

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Canonical, makers of the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution, recently announced it is pulling out of the mobile device market and will no longer invest in its Unity8 phone and convergence initiative. The decision will also see the company switch back to GNOME for the default Ubuntu desktop when Ubuntu 18.04 LTS arrives.

Ubuntu and Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth said in a recent blog post that he took the view that, if convergence was the future and they could deliver it as free software, that would be widely appreciated both in the free software community and in the technology industry as there is substantial frustration with the existing, closed, alternatives available to manufacturers.

Shuttleworth said he was wrong on both counts, noting that the community viewed their efforts as fragmentation instead of innovation. The industry has not rallied behind the possibility, either, having instead taken what the South African entrepreneur calls a “better the devil you know” approach to such form factors.

Canonical embarked on an ambitious crowdsourced campaign to fund a high-end, Linux-based smartphone called the Ubuntu Edge in mid-2013. The project had a solid showing but fell short of its lofty $32 million goal with only $12.8 million raised.

The group went on to launch a handful of rebadged smartphones and tablets but middling hardware and questionable marketing campaigns ensured Canonical would never make any serious traction.

Shuttleworth said the decision has been very difficult due to the force of his conviction in the convergence future but the choice, he concluded, is ultimately shaped by commercial constraints.

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Id have GLADLY paid for an ubuntu phone, but it was their job to get it to mainstream market and they never did.
 
To me it sounds like Canonical was viewed more as comical. Had it been taken more seriously, it may have gone on to be something but the industry is comfortable where it is and doesn't want another player with their fingers in their lucrative pie.
 
Too bad moat people are jumping ship on Ubuntu and going to linux mint instead.
 
Canonical screwed up the launch in every way. No flagship models, heck no mid rangers. No name chipset with pathetic hardware and sealed battery, no apps. Their tablets had the same issue. And then, if you wanted one, good luck finding one, because apparently canonical thought less was more with manufacturing, and barely made any of the things.

Absolutely botched execution and handling.
 
If Microsoft, with its billions of dollars couldn't get Windows onto mobile phones, what made these fools think that they could get Linux/Ubuntu on them?
 
If Microsoft, with its billions of dollars couldn't get Windows onto mobile phones, what made these fools think that they could get Linux/Ubuntu on them?
well to be fair the demand for a smartphone that doesnt have rediculous amounts of spying google/MS integration is there, and a bunch of built in bloat and all, they just went about it in so many wrong ways.

They should have focused on making a way to allow people to flash this to the phones people already had, if that was possible. once that user share is built up, THEN start trying to release hardware. That assumes its possible, im not as familiar with the mobile software end of things.
 
Pity, been using Ubuntu for a few years now. Brilliant, even if it was a paid OS, I'd buy it.
Can't wait to download 17.04 LTS when it gets released later this week.
 
Comical botched the idea of convergence worse than Microsoft with Windows 10 and UAP.
Except Windows 10 accounts for around 25% of OSes and Canonical is like .2%.... so yeah... guess they are a bit worse :)

Of course the entire Linux base is only about 2%.... not sure what convergence they thought was being called out for...
 
Convergence = "one size fits all" = lazy design = compromise on every platform = megafail. A nine year old understands this but apparently a lot of software companies don't.
 
Convergence = "one size fits all" = lazy design = compromise on every platform = megafail. A nine year old understands this but apparently a lot of software companies don't.
It doesnt inherently mean lazy design, alot of convergent stuff is SUPER efficient - look at java language. sure its inherently slower than lower level languages, but it runs on a damn huge amount of hardware and is plenty competent for day to day tasks.

It just doesnt always work so well at the user level for interacting with computers.
 
Convergence = "one size fits all" = lazy design = compromise on every platform = megafail. A nine year old understands this but apparently a lot of software companies don't.
Well, for all intents and purposes, the PC market has already "converged" under Windows.... And I'm pretty sure MS is quite happy this way, as they rake in billions of dollars virtually unopposed....Guess they're being run by a bunch of 9-year-olds?

Wish the 9 year olds I teach were that smart or capable... would make my job a lot easier...
 
Hey Canonical... instead of wasting time in an already saturated market, why don't you make a robust and fully capable alternative to Microsoft Active Directory. It is time to shake up the enterprise OS market. M$ has been in power too long.
 
Hey Canonical... instead of wasting time in an already saturated market, why don't you make a robust and fully capable alternative to Microsoft Active Directory. It is time to shake up the enterprise OS market. M$ has been in power too long.

+1

Rather than try to do what others are already doing, they should focus on competing in the space that has hindered the progress of Linux the most, lack of robust enterprise tools/integration.

I would love a smart phone running a Linux OS but it does not have to share the exact same software. A phone has limited resources so should have software that suites. Desktops, laptops, tablets and phones can all integrate without needing a common base/UI, it is only the integration protocols that need to be shared. The UI should be specific to the screen real-estate, size and orientation. The protocols can and should all be the same.

Ubuntu has failed because it tried to do something that didn't need doing. Same as Windows failed at a common UI layer.

So if someone can create a Linux Phone that is efficient, integrates smoothly with the Desktop OS and has reasonable specs I would be happy to buy one. I like Google phones but they fail in battery life. I think iPhones have battery life covered the best and Google and everyone else creating phones needs to emulate this by limiting how much runs simultaneously.
 
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