Why has Canonical Inc. succeeded where all the others have failed?

[andrew.46]

Canonical has succeeded because it's run by a smart, competent, rich guy who's committed to making it successful.

As several others have mentioned in this thread: it depends what you define as 'success'. To demonstrate perhaps the other side of the coin a distro like Slackware could be seen as successful as well, in terms of committed users, solid and well functioning distro, longevity. It is also run by a smart and competent guy who admittedly is not all that rich and certainly has not been in space .

In the yoga world one would define success completely differently. 'Arogya. Ayus. Atmasakshatkara.' (Good health, a long life and a tranquil mind.) It all depends what you would call success...

[Elfy]

...
Just think about it: who in their right mind is gonna grab their recently purchased nexus device, wipe android off and install ubuntu touch?...

Me

Made it easier for you to read nothingspecial

[nothingspecial]

Well, I suppose it depends on what you consider a 'right mind' but I take your point

After all, imagine if anyone was actually crazy enough to take their recently purchased computer, wipe windows off and install ubuntu. It just wouldn't happen.. No one would ever do that.....

[nomenkultur]

That is my point, very few people do:



I don't use ubuntu exclusively, but I can tell you that I only network with ubuntu or blackberry os.

How many people that are plagued by windows security issues and spending hundreds on antiviruses (virii?) firewalls, hardening windows to nsa standards wouldn't be much better off dual booting ubuntu?

ubuntu was given the 'most secure os' seal by the uk govt... but you never heard about it, but I bet you heard about that 25 million ubuntu edge smartphone and the new ubuntu tv etc...

that's what annoys me about canonical, instead of focusing in what matters they have these pipe dreams about ubuntu edge phones and tv's .

Have you seen the instructions on how to load ubuntu touch on that nexus, is it something that you imagine regular joe consumer do?

so waste resources on a project that will AT BEST be niche like 0.50% of smartphone users.

you have firefox os, tizen, sailfish, windows, ios, android, blackberry os

all niches are pretty much covered, what is ubuntu touch bringing to the table except for a "me too" ?

[Elfy]

that's what annoys me about canonical, instead of focusing in what matters they have these pipe dreams about ubuntu edge phones and tv's .

Is your point of view. Canonical obviously have a different one to you. Such is life.

[Dave_L]

If their pipe dreams help them to keep Ubuntu available for the desktop computer, it's fine with me.

[buzzingrobot]

If their pipe dreams help them to keep Ubuntu available for the desktop computer, it's fine with me.

Canonical is a business. No profit, no business. Since they can't make money from desktop Ubuntu, either they make money elsewhere or vanish.

Phones and tablets don't interest me much. But, if I was Canonical or any similar business, here's what I'd do:

1. Sell phones. Not software for phones. Your phones with your software.

2. Target Asia and Africa.

3. Sell one phone at a low price with low margins. Sell the same phone in different packaging and with more capabilities enabled and more apps provided as the more expensive upgrade with nice high margins.

[SeijiSensei]

big honking graphic

Anyone claiming to have reliable statistics on operating system penetration is living in a dream world.

First, any measures that rely on shipments of computers with installed operating systems is going to miss a large chunk of the Linux market where aftermarket installations are the norm. If someone buys a machine with Windows, then adds Linux in a dual-boot arrangement, that Linux installation will never be counted.

Then there is the problem of virtual machines. If someone has a VM host with three Linux and three Windows server installations, how many of those licenses, if any, will be counted in that graphic? With virtualization there is literally no good way to determine the penetration of operating systems, especially in enterprise server farms where virtualization is a common practice.

I'm not saying that Linux has a much bigger share than the 1-2% that graphic alleges, but without a citation to the source of that image, or any information on how these figures are collected, I'll call BS.

[Don_Stahl]

Good points, SeijiSensei.

OS market share is pretty hard to measure.

The method used by NetMarketShare tabulates the different OS that access a variety of websites, but of course that method of measuring OS penetration misses machines that aren't connected, or which very seldom access the net. And in some cases a concerned user may set up a browser spoof to mis-report his OS to the server.

[nomenkultur]

Seiji those graphics are web metrics... I am not claiming that they are entirely accurate, but they are what the IT industry uses to gauge market share of browsers, operating systems etc...

http://arstechnica.com/information-t...pick-up-steam/

"that method of measuring OS penetration misses machines that aren't connected, or which very seldom access the net."

You can extrapolate that the OS market share in offline machines should be about the same as online machines. Actually I believe windows XP is even more dominant in offline machines (offices, enterprises, small businesses, governments, etc)



"1. Sell phones. Not software for phones. Your phones with your software.

2. Target Asia and Africa. "

you just described nokia's business plan, firefox os is also targetting cheap phones for the developing world

Jolla is targetting the high end, RIM is struggling to market bb phones to anyone besides enterprise or secure environments.


That was the point I was trying to make:

The smartphone market is overcrowded with multiple players not even able to breathe.

I believe that nokia will do decently with their lumia brand in places like india, etc.

Jolla might be able to carve out a niche if they deliver a good experience on their devices and they have a decent android compability layer.

I don't think ubuntu touch brings anything new to the table and I believe that canonical's continual insistence in touch devices will be counterproductive for ubuntu desktop.


My logic is simple:

Touch devices are consumption oriented devices, no one wants to edit a spreadsheet in a tablet, no one wants to code in a smartphone.

They serve a purpose: accessing and consuming data ... not producing it.

For a platform like ubuntu touch that is struggling to garner dev interest.... how am I supposed to believe they are going to have a healthy app market??

All the gimmicks have been tried, firefox os with their html5 web apps or jolla with their android layer...

If you love ubuntu desktop you should be concerned by this .... ubuntu edge fiasco in a bigger scale ... and canonical is taking all steps to modify their ubuntu experience to suit such touch devices.

one such example is mir. Mir's sole raison d'etre is ubuntu touch, canonical is willing to isolate ubuntu from the wider linux sphere so they can push their own solutions in ubuntu touch.

This should worry you all, a lot, because I predict stuff like the linux world moving from xorg to wayland, debian adopting systemd, etc,,, and that will be a tremendous strain for canonical, who now has to single handely maintain their code.

and the million dollar question, what happens in the future if ubuntu touch crashes and burns?