The major Linux distribution providers — Red Hat, Novell and Canonical — are preparing to attend IBM’s Lotusphere 2010 conference (Orlando, January 17-21). The VAR Guy is keeping a particularly close eye on Canonical, backer of Ubuntu. Here’s why.

The big news in the Ubuntu world this week is Mark Shuttleworth's announcement that he'll be stepping down as CEO of Canonical and transitioning the CEO crown to Canonical insider Jane Silber.  Here's the news, with some thoughts on what this means for Ubuntu and Canonical.

When Novell announced a reorganization this week, The VAR Guy took some time to digest the news. He sipped his latte and mulled Novell’s stated direction. Now, our resident blogger is ready to weigh in with an opinion. Specifically, keep an eye on Novell Senior VP Joe Wagner.

Unison Technologies, with an assist from Canonical and Ubuntu Linux, says it is “launching a major threat to Microsoft Exchange.” Hmmm. The VAR Guy has heard similar grandstanding before from a range of companies. But Unison has caught our resident blogger’s attention a few times. Here’s why.

It's official: Ubuntu 10.04 Long Term Support is out, and this particular blogger was privy to the press conference about it. Both Mark Shuttleworth and Jane Silber discussed the plans and progress of new operating system, and then fielded some Q and A. With big news being that over 80 ISVs are supporting Ubuntu officially here's what it means for the desktop users and Canonical as a whole...

Back in 2007, Canonical launched Ubuntu Live - a one-time conference hosted in Portland, Ore. Since that time I've been looking for another Ubuntu-centric conference where I can meet key sources from across the Ubuntu ecosystem. Fast forward to September 2009, and I think there might finally be a conference that fulfills my Ubuntu educational needs.
It's called Atlanta Linux Fest.

Sure, Windows is expected to run on 1 billion devices by 2010. But a loud minority is making its voice heard by moving to Ubuntu Linux. In fact, Canonical’s marketing materials state that Ubuntu now has more than 8 million users.

During the Ubuntu Developer Summit (May 25-29, Barcelona), Canonical's Netbook team is set to show Google Android applications running on Ubuntu, according to sources that will attend the conference. Here's why Canonical is so intrigued by Google's mobile operating system.

I knew there was going to be big Linux netbook news coming out of the Computex trade show in Taipei, Taiwan, but I didn't know it was going to be this big. Sources at Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, tell me that Canonical will be announcing new partnerships with Intel, SanDisk, and RealNetworks.