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[Jason Gerard DeRose <jderose@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

The momentum of Ubuntu on ARM was a key piece of evidence we considered when
developing our Novacut strategy.  We haven't really talked about this
publicly yet, so I thought I should share this blog post here, considering
some of the exciting (but largely unnoticed) events at CES.

>From http://blog.novacut.com/2011/01/big-ces-news-engadget-missed.html

The big CES news Engadget
missed<http://blog.novacut.com/2011/01/big-ces-news-engadget-missed.html>
  I'm quite a fan of Engadget <http://www.engadget.com/>, but I'm surprised
they didn't cover the Nufront ARM laptops running
Ubuntu<http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/01/2ghz-cortex-a9-ubuntu-laptop-at-ces/>that
were demoed at CES.

You might be wondering, how does this relate to Novacut? Well, obviously
we're banking on Ubuntu pretty heavily, both as a platform for content
creation *and* a platform for content distribution. And bear in mind, we
intend Novacut to be profitable... how else could we pay the developers
we're going to need to really do this right?

At an emotional level, it was easy for us to choose Ubuntu (and the broader
freedesktop) because it's what we know and love. But we've equally chosen
Ubuntu because we think it clearly offers us the highest chance of success,
and the greatest profitability. Back in July when
Jeff<http://twitter.com/#%21/jeffreyballagh>,
Tara, <http://twitter.com/#%21/frmdrt> and I started seriously thinking
about Novacut, we concluded that we could safely assume that over the next
few years there will be a *dramatic* increase in the size of the Ubuntu user
base.

Why would we think something so crazy? Because we expect a flood of sexy,
cheap hardware to hit the market, running Ubuntu, and powered by ARM
processors <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture>. And unlike
netbooks, Microsoft can't kill this one off because they have no answer
whatsoever. Considering Ubuntu is ready for ARM *today*, it's no surprise
that Microsoft awkwardly announced that some future version of Windows will
also run on ARM<http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2011/01/windows-8-to-come-in-arm-soc-flavors.ars>.
That wasn't an announcement for consumers or journalists, it was a message
to OEMs: "Please don't jump ship."

As far as I know, the Nufront dual-core 2GHz Cortex-A9
SOC<http://www.arm.com/about/newsroom/arm-technologies-power-nufronts-first-computer-system-chip-to-reshape-laptop-market.php>is
the first ARM SOC aimed strictly at netbooks, laptops, and desktops.
It's
power requirements are too high for cell phones (and pushing it even on some
tablet designs), so they clearly expect enough volume without cell phones.
It also has a SATA controler, something not needed by phones or tablets. It
was way back in November 2008 that Canonical announced their ARM
initiative<http://www.canonical.com/news/arm-linux>,
and back in June 2010 that the Linaro project was
announced<http://www.linaro.org/arm-freescale-ibm-samsung-st-ericsson-and-texas-instruments-form-new-company-to-speed-the-rollout-of-linux-based-devices/>
.

Along with Microsoft's ARM announcement at CES, NVIDIA announced project
Denver<http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/01/nvidias-project-denver-cpu-puts-the-nail-in-wintels-coffin.ars>with
much fanfare, the overall message being that these two visionary
companies will (in two years or more) deliver a future of computing where
ARM is no longer just for mobile, where there is a full-blown,
general-purpose OS to run on ARM. Pretty exciting, I suppose.

But if you knew where to look, the above fanfare was completely upstaged by
a subtle, knowing nod from Canonical and Nufront: "Oh yeah, we've already
done that, you'll be able to buy finished systems in 6 months."

Canonical didn't need a bunch of fanfare because they weren't there to talk
to Journalists. Canonical was there to talk to
OEMs<http://www.canonical.com/about-canonical/news-and-events/events/2011/01/06/live-events/ces>.
Apparently Microsoft noticed.