In a December 2012 Slashdot interview, Shuttleworth made it clear that Ubuntu on mobile was still in their plans. “Let’s make one OS that runs on the phone AND on your supercomputer. We’re close to that now – we know Ubuntu makes a great cloud OS and a great server OS and a great desktop. So I think the next frontier is to create a seamless experience from the embedded world to the cloud,” said Shuttleworth.
Shuttleworth continued, the “mobile world is crucial to the future of the PC. This month, for example, it became clear that the traditional PC is shrinking in favor of tablets. So if we want to be relevant on the PC, we have to figure out how to be relevant in the mobile world first.”
He plans to do this by focusing on establishing “a great story around Ubuntu and mobile form factors – the tablet and the phone – on which we can build deeper relationships with everyday consumers. All the major PC companies [such as Dell] now ship PC’s with Ubuntu pre-installed. So we have a very solid set of working engagements in the industry. But those PC companies are nervous to promote something new to PC buyers. If we can get PC buyers familiar with Ubuntu as a phone and tablet experience, then they may be more willing buy it on the PC too.”