

Ubuntu Smartphone Shipping in October - ergo14
http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2013/02/06/ubuntu-smartphone-shipping-in-october/

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vy8vWJlco
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
That says more about WSJ than it says about Ubuntu on mobile...

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olenhad
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
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?

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Apocryphon
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.

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

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dylangs1030
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
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_

------
codex
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.

~~~
bad_user
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.

~~~
mercurial
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 :)

~~~
bad_user
On Microsoft, it's debatable if Windows Phone is a well executed product or
not. I played with one and personally I hated it.

First of all, with both Windows Phone and Windows 8 they went way too far with
their minimalistic design. The interface gives you no clues on what things are
clickable, or what actions you can do. Many times you end up doing things and
have no idea what got you there in the first place. Going back to what you
were doing is equally painful. Microsoft also tried to come up with design
guidelines, but they aren't the kind of company to enforce such guidelines and
even they are guilty of breaking those guidelines, so there's also a lack of
established conventions. The interface, while pretty and shiny, simply sucks.

Second, Windows Phone 7 (don't know about 8) lacked the ability to run native
binaries, with some rare exceptions if you happened to be one of few
privileged big companies. This is in addition to the lack of support for
OpenGL, making ports of games a bitch to deal with. Did you know that many
games that are available on both Android and iOS have the same codebase for
both? It's no wonder that Microsoft's Marketplace is empty, because nobody
wanted to deal with yet another proprietary platform using proprietary APIs.

Speaking of WinPhone 7, it also sucked that many users didn't receive the
upgrade to WinPhone 8. In regards to upgrades, at least Android has the excuse
of fragmentation that you can put up with because of its popularity, but
Microsoft has no excuse for that.

Third, everybody fears a new Microsoft monopoly. Windows Phone is a
proprietary OS, built by a big company which is known to use aggresive tactics
to move to new markets, by averaging their already established monopoly on
desktops. Android on the other hand, even if it is controlled by Google, can
always be forked in case shit happens (hey, Amazon already did it). Android
also allows users to install apps from third party sources. Windows Phone does
not allow one to do that. My Samsung Galaxy came with their Samsung's
marketplace on it (or whatever they call it) installed. Sure it sucks in
comparison to Google Play, but it's there for their peace of mind (they also
have their own OS btw, called Bada, which is more successful than Windows
Phone, because Samsung knows how to sell).

Microsoft is also known for dropping the ball after they achieve success ...
projects like IExplorer and Windows Mobile stagnated for years before
Microsoft finally felt the heat from competition. Only Nokia was stupid enough
to invest heavily in Windows Phone and that's only because Microsoft is
putting money in their pockets.

I don't know how good Ubuntu will be for smartphones or how well Canonical
will execute. But Ubuntu (and Firefox OS for that matter) will not have the
same problems and we might be surprised.

