In a conference call with reporters yesterday, Shuttleworth said that Windows 7 is "a substantial improvement on the past. Even on netbooks, it's a credible release." But he also commented that Microsoft's new operating system is "proprietary, and a relatively expensive piece of of technology", whilst also stipulating his confidence in the success of the upcoming release of the next version of Ubuntu.
The CEO of Canonical continued by saying that Windows was too "restrictive" on netbooks, and "not worth the price", adding that Microsoft is still attempting to flog Windows XP to netbook manufacturers and accused the antiquated OS of being a "ghost".
Ubuntu 9.01 arrives this week
Canonical is set to launch its latest edition of Ubuntu tomorrow. Dubbed 'Karmic Koala', this release brings the Ubuntu Linux distribution up to version 9.10.
Ubuntu will provide a special edition for netbooks named Ubuntu 9.10 Netbook Remix. Canonical will be supporting about 25 netbook models, including Dell, available in the market with this new netbook-centric version in this release.
Ubuntu 9.10 offers many improvements in device driver compatibility, Shuttleworth said, something that has aided the uptake of Microsoft's broadly supported operating systems.
Canonical hopes that both its support for current netbook models and its device driver improvements will help Ubuntu Linux to regain share in the netbook market, which Shuttleworth claimed Microsoft "clawed back" after the original success of the free, open source software Linux alternatives.
Karmic Koala also includes the Ubuntu One product, which provides 2GB of free online storage to all Ubuntu users for synchronization services. Alternatively you can pay Canonical US$10 a month to get 50GB of cloud storage.