“Canonical seems to be pursuing a very Apple-like strategy with
Ubuntu. This might be a winning strategy, but the company is
missing one major piece: Its own hardware. Canonical needs to stop
waiting on mainstream OEMs to get excited about Linux on the
desktop and buy its own OEM, like System76.“In recent weeks the company has announced that it would be
replacing GNOME’s default UI in its next release, and has embraced
a replacement for X on the desktop called Wayland. Canonical have
been putting much of its development muscle behind Ubuntu One in
the last few releases, and on a lot of polish for the desktop look
and feel, and they’ve been replacing many desktop applications with
simpler software in an attempt to ensure that the Ubuntu desktop is
suitable for mainstream users. But all of this isn’t worth diddly
if they can’t get Ubuntu in front of more mainstream users —
and Canonical is in for a long string of disappointments if they’re
hoping Dell, HP, or any other major OEM will back Ubuntu in a real
way.”