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Is Canonical the Next Apple?

Posted by Soulskill on from the three-years-to-success-six-years-to-evil-empire dept.

An anonymous reader writes "With the release of 11.04 Natty Narwhal, Canonical is taking Ubuntu in a new direction, which puts cloud services and content like music at the forefront of the Ubuntu experience. Ubuntu is no longer 'Linux,' or 'desktop' or 'netbook'; it's just Ubuntu for clients and servers. Ubuntu has its own desktop in Unity, app store (Software Center), music service and personal cloud. If Ubuntu takes off, will it make Canonical the next Apple? Of course, Canonical doesn't sell computers, but then again Ubuntu can be used on any computer, even Macs."

2 of 511 comments (clear)

  1. No. by Manip · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Apple is a UX company. Their entire role, from their perspective is to give users the best possible user experience. This thinking is in their products, their software, their sales, and even their after-sales services. You can argue there is room for improvement and most would agree, but you'd struggle to argue that Apple's goal isn't a great UX.

    Linux, and by extension Ubuntu, don't care about the UX. They design geek software for a very niche audience who want complexity and full access by default. This kind of business model is almost 180 degrees away from what the mass consumer market is moving to. The only success Linux has had is with integrated applications (Android, Microwaves, Routers) where the UX is designed completely from scratch by a third party private company.

    So, no, Ubuntu or Linux won't be the next Apple. Microsoft won't be the next Apple either, because both make UX a secondary concern.

  2. Re:No. by Manip · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Ubuntu are the best Linux distribution. That puts them some place between Windows 3.1 and Windows 95. I'm sorry, but it is 2011, and their attempts just aren't cutting it. Clutter is still king, the terminal is still in common usage, the dialog boxes are fugely, and they're still building a experience which is aimed at geeks and elitists instead of average joe.

    I don't care what Ubuntu's mission statement is. When they reach Windows 95 levels then let me know. The problem they have is that the entire Linux community seems dead set on keeping normal people out.