The End Of Ubuntu One - What It Means

Although a big fan of Ubuntu Linux as a desktop OS, I've never been interested in their cloud storage platform Ubuntu One, and found it a bit of a nuisance when asked to sign up for it every time I installed the OS.

Now Ubuntu One is being shut down. I'm 'meh' but still a bit surprised.

The linked article talks about mobile, and how new mobiles such as the Ubuntu-powered ones need cloud storage to succeed. If so, isn't it really bad timing for Canonical to walk away from a fully operational cloud platform just when its mobile devices are entering the market?

Ubuntu-powered smartphones
(Do you know what the time on the middle phone refers to?)

I think it's about economics.

Ubuntu's statement says:

If we offer a service, we want it to compete on a global scale, and for Ubuntu One to continue to do that would require more investment than we are willing to make. We choose instead to invest in making the absolute best, open platform and to highlight the best of our partners’ services and content.

Hmm. I read this as Canonical trying to build a partner ecosystem that will substitute for having a big cloud-and-mobile story like Google does, without the investment that such a proprietary ecosystem will require. Let's see if they succeed.

The other side-story in the linked article is about telcos and their role. Having worked at a telco over the last two years, I can confirm that the major fear in the telco industry is being reduced to commodity carriers by "over the top" services. The telcos are fighting to offer content, and will want willing mobile wannabe partners like Mozilla and Canonical to offer smartphone platforms that will work with networking infrastructure and make the telcos more attractive (through content that both players source from content providers). It will be interesting to see how this four-way, federated partnership (between multiple telcos, independent smartphone platform vendors like Mozilla and Canonical, smartphone device OEMs and content providers) will play out. Many of these companies will think of themselves as the centre of the Universe and the others as partners.

"Nothing runs like a fox" - Well, let's see if the Firefox Smartphone has legs

In the meantime, some good news for startup cloud providers ("startup" only with respect to the cloud, since they will still need deep pockets to set up the infrastructure!): Canonical is open-sourcing its Ubuntu One storage code “to give others an opportunity to build on this code to create an open source file syncing platform.” This should be interesting.