14 DAY TRIAL // Canonical's plan to take over the world is on schedule and it seems that China is now a major player that will help the British company achieve its goal.
Right before the 13.04 Beta 1 release, Canonical announced that a new distribution would join its portfolio. Ubuntu Kylin is the first Chinese Linux distribution and the first official release will be in April.
China Software and Integrated Chip Promotions Centre, a governing body in China that is part of the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, has proposed a new reference architecture for Chinese operating systems. The basis for this architecture will be Canonical’s Ubuntu OS.
Canonical will work with CCN Open Source Innovation Joint Lab, from Beijing, to develop a new Ubuntu desktop version called Kylin, with features specific to the Chinese market.
"CSIP, Canonical and NUDT share the goal of widespread adoption of high quality Linux on personal devices and in the cloud."
"This collaboration will bring local investment and participation to ensure that the platform is relevant for the Chinese market, and close coordination with the global Ubuntu project ensures that it is familiar to software and hardware vendors, and useful for export products made by Chinese companies as well," said Jane Silber, CEO of Canonical.
Believe it or not, this is an amazing deal for Canonical and it could be even more important than its partnership with various hardware manufacturers, such as IBM.
Ubuntu Kylin 13.04 comes with Chinese input methods, specific calendars, a new weather indicator, and access to Chinese music services from the Dash.
The new Ubuntu based distribution will also use WPS (a very popular office suite in China) instead of LibreOffice.
Even Mark Shuttleworth commented on this partnership and expressed his conviction that the Canonical – Joint Lab collaboration will be beneficial for all platform, including desktop, server, cloud, tablet and phone.
If you are curious about Ubuntu Kylin, you can download it from Softpedia.