Canonical backs netbooks over tablets for its Ubuntu operating system

Canonical have announced that it is committed to the netbook market and that it has no plans to develop the Linux-based Ubuntu OS for tablets, as yet.

Company founder, Mark Shuttleworth stated over the weekend that Canonical have remained un-swayed by the astronomical successes of tablet devices over the past year, and that the company remain loyal to the netbook and laptop PC markets.

“We certainly haven’t quit the netbook space,” Shuttleworth said. “If anything, we see growing demand for Ubuntu in PC sectors pushing into new global markets, where netbooks are the name of the game”.

Canonical have flirted with the tablet market before and some tablets, such as the dual-screen, Kno device, have shipped with operating systems based on Ubuntu, while others have been spotted at trade shows and events.

The beta version of Ubuntu 11.04 – aka Natty Narwhal – released last week, appears to back up Shuttleworth’s claims; the new OS is indeed available in desktop, server and netbook editions, apparently without a tablet edition. However, tech bloggers have speculated that this version of Ubuntu will indeed be Canonical’s “optimised tablet version” in the same way that Honeycomb was for Google’s Android.

It is the new version’s reliance on ARM architecture that has got bloggers’ typing fingers all twitchy, as these processors are normally found in tablet and smartphone devices, while Intel processors run the netbook, laptop and desktop game. With no beta version of the tablet edition though, it is unclear when Canonical are going to spring this ‘surprise tablet version’ of Ubuntu 11.04 on us, if at all.

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