14 DAY TRIAL // Canonical is very close to finishing the Ubuntu Touch operating system and to making it shippable for phones, but it looks like they have much bigger plans than that. They are going to announce a new development partnership with a major telecommunication company.
Canonical already has numerous partners in its Carrier Advisory Group, which has been formed specifically with Ubuntu Touch in mind. Basically, these are companies interested in what Canonical is doing with the Ubuntu Touch platform and they will probably provide some input after launch.
The Ubuntu Online Summit is now in full effect and the Ubuntu developers and the community are talking about the future of the platform. Because it's organized so close to the launch of Ubuntu 140.10 and right before the release of the final version of Ubuntu Touch, much of users’ interest is geared towards these platforms. Everybody is asking when Ubuntu Touch ships, on what phones, and so on.
Not too many things have changed in this regard. So far, only Meizu and Bq have been confirmed as the official hardware partners for Ubuntu Touch, but Canonical is very close to announcing a new important partnership with a big telecom company and it might not have anything to do with the CAG assembly.
Mark Shuttleworth is teasing us with pieces of information
A Q&A session with Mark Shuttleworth took place yesterday and he talked at length about Ubuntu Touch. There aren't too many new pieces of information, but he did choose to share something very interesting. He wasn't asked about it, so it must be important, because he was very keen to tease the community.
"I do want to leave you with a tease, which is that we are going to announce very shortly, a developer program in partnership with one of the world's biggest telecommunications company. So I think this project has legs [Ubuntu Touch], i think there are going to be millions of people who really appreciate the work that we do on this phone, and I think we're entering a time where small or independent community oriented platform is really valuable," says Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Canonical and of the Ubuntu project.
It's difficult to anticipate when the Ubuntu Touch RTM development will be completed, but it seems to be just weeks away. The developers still have a few problems to fix, but we should see a very stable image pretty soon. We've had a closer look at the latest Ubuntu Touch RTM Update 7, and it's already in pretty good shape.
