Canonical (company)

Updated on Sep 27, 2024

Edit

Comment

Industry Computer software Revenue 65.7 million USD (2013) Headquarters London, United Kingdom Founded 5 March 2004, Isle of Man Parent organization Canonical Group Limited		Area served Worldwide CEO Jane Silber (Mar 2010–) Founder Mark Shuttleworth Number of employees 700

Type Private company limited by shares Key people Mark Shuttleworth (Executive Chairman)Jane Silber (CEO) Products Ubuntu, Launchpad, Bazaar, Landscape, Ubuntu One Subsidiaries Canonical Group LtdCanonical USA Inc.Canonical China Ltd (Chinese: 科能软件股份有限公司)Canonical Brasil LtdaCanonical Canada LtdCanonical Ltd Taiwan Br. (Chinese: 英屬曼島商肯諾有限公司臺灣分公司) Profiles Twitter Facebook Google+

Canonical Ltd. is a UK-based privately held computer software company founded and funded by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth to market commercial support and related services for Ubuntu and related projects. Canonical employs staff in more than 30 countries and maintains offices in London, Boston, Taipei, Shanghai, Tokyo and the Isle of Man.

Projects

Canonical Ltd. has created and continues to back several projects. Principally these are free and open-source software (FOSS) or tools designed to improve collaboration between free software developers and contributors.

Open-source software

Ubuntu, a Debian-based Linux distribution with Unity (formerly GNOME) desktop

GNU Bazaar, a decentralized revision control system

Storm, an object-relational mapper for Python, part of the Launchpad codebase

Juju, a service orchestration management tool

MAAS, a bare-metal server provisioning tool

Upstart, an event-based replacement for the init daemon

Quickly, a framework for creating software programs for Linux

Ubiquity, installer

Mir display server

Snappy Ubuntu Core, tiny, transactional version of Ubuntu

Snapcraft, python-based tool for packaging software

Launchpad a centralised website containing several component web applications designed to make collaboration between free software projects easier:

PPA, a special software repository for uploading software packages to be built and published as an APT repository,

Blueprints, a tool for planning features of software,

Code, hosting of Bazaar branches,

Answers, support tracker,

Rosetta, an online language translation tool to help localisation of software (cf. the Rosetta Stone),

Malone (as in "Bugsy Malone"), a collaborative bug-tracker that allows linking to other bug-trackers,

Soyuz, a tool for creating custom-distributions, such as Kubuntu and Xubuntu.

Other projects and services

Landscape, a proprietary web service for centralized management of Ubuntu systems

Ubuntu Software Center

Ubuntu One, a discontinued service for file synchronization and other uses

Canonical supplies some of the core engineering to Linaro which invests in upstream projects

Ubuntu Advantage, in Japan, the support service sales by K.K. Ashisuto

Joint ventures

Windows Subsystem for Linux, with Microsoft

Business plans

In a Guardian interview in May 2008, Shuttleworth said that the Canonical business model was service provision and explained that Canonical was not yet close to profitability. Canonical also claimed it would wait for the business to turn into a profitable one within another three to five years. Shuttleworth regarded Canonical as positioning itself as demand for services related to free software rose. This strategy has been compared to Red Hat's business strategies in the 1990s. In an early 2009 New York Times article, Shuttleworth said that Canonical's revenue was "creeping" towards $30 million, the company's break-even point. However, as of 2013 the company was again in investment mode, making a $21.3 million loss as it invested in mobile.

In 2007, Canonical launched an International online shop selling support services and Ubuntu branded goods; later in 2008 it expanded that with a United States-specific shop designed to reduce shipment times. At the same time, the word Ubuntu was trademarked in connection with clothing and accessories.

Subsidiaries

Canonical Group Ltd is located in London.

Canonical USA Inc. is located in Lexington, Massachusetts.

Canonical China Ltd (Chinese: 科能软件股份有限公司) is located in Shanghai.

Canonical Brasil Ltda is located in São Paulo.

Canonical Canada Ltd is located in Montreal (the office is no longer in service).

Canonical Ltd Taiwan Br. (Chinese: 英屬曼島商肯諾有限公司臺灣分公司) is located in Taipei.

Employees

Canonical has more than 500 employees. The head office is in London, previously on the 27th floor of Millbank Tower, but now on the 5th Floor of the Blue Fin Building, Southwark Street. In the summer of 2006, Canonical opened an office in Montreal to house its global support and services operation. Taipei 101 is also home to a Canonical office. There is also an OEM team in Lexington, Massachusetts, United States.

Current

Notable current employees of Canonical include:

Mark Shuttleworth, founder of the Ubuntu project, former Debian maintainer of Apache and founder of Thawte Consulting (2004–), CEO until March 2010

Jane Silber, CEO since March 2010; formerly COO and leader of the Ubuntu One project

Past

Notable past employees:

Ben Collins, former Debian Project Leader and kernel developer (2006–2009)

Jeff Waugh, employee no. 3, GNOME and Planet aggregator developer, Business Development (2004–2006)

Benjamin Mako Hill, core developer and community coordinator (2004–2005)

Ian Jackson, developer of dpkg and former Debian Project Leader (2005–2007)

Lars Wirzenius, first contributor to the Linux kernel and Linus Torvalds' former office mate (2007–2009)

Scott James Remnant, formerly a Debian and GNU maintainer of GNU Libtool and co-author of the Planet aggregator (2004–2011)

Matt Zimmerman, formerly of the Debian security team – worked at Canonical as Ubuntu Chief Technical Officer (2004–2011)

John D. Bernard, was responsible for all major marketing deployments (2009–2012)

Stuart Langridge (2009–2013)

Jono Bacon, Ubuntu community leader (2006–2014)

References

Canonical (company) Wikipedia

(Text) CC BY-SA

Contents