 When we look at Ubuntu for Android, we find that there are a couple of solutions already available in the market, most notably being Motorola's web top OS. So how different is Ubuntu for Android from those solutions? Sure, so the the web top service that was been launched I think maybe one or at least a year ago with the Motorola, it's based on a similar kind of capability where the phone is docked but the desktop is very very basic so essentially what you would get by docking that phone, the service that would be invoked is it's basically just a browsing capability. With the Ubuntu for Android solution what is being made available by docking the phone and to a desktop display is an entire operating system, PC operating system and it's exact and based on exactly the same operating system that is currently shipped on the many millions of laptop hardware devices. So what you're getting is a full operational PC system with the Ubuntu for Android service versus with the the the web top service from the Motorola was a very basic UI allowing you to just browse the internet. So a big difference in terms of the level of capability. Also we think that the the ability for what we're trying to discuss with handset manufacturers with the Ubuntu for Android service is that by incorporating a full desktop capability alongside with a very efficient smartphone capability you actually have a much better basis to sell phones as a productivity tool to high-end enterprise users because they are getting the full range of applications that they would be used to using on a normal desktop. What kind of market do you see for Ubuntu for Android especially in the enterprise segment? I think many enterprises will look at this particular solution and look at its advantages in terms of offering particular business users that are very very mobile that would want very easy access to enterprise applications. So the flexibility and also in terms of cost because there is less cost associated with the solution in terms of comparing it to an expensive laptop for example. So looking at the advantage of this solution there is better flexibility in terms of pure mobility. There is there is a certain cost advantages for enterprises as well and it's a very straightforward solution. So the Ubuntu desktop is currently deployed in very many enterprises. It's very well regarded as being a desktop computing system for enterprises which means that it's very well understood by IT management. It has very high levels of security so in many ways it actually doesn't detract too far from how enterprise IT managers for example would want to manage that. It's basically the same systems that are being deployed but available simply in a smartphone context rather than a laptop context. How is this going to work? Will there be Ubuntu for Android available on the internet which people can just download and install on their smartphones or are you working with the smartphone manufacturers and Ubuntu for Android will come pre-installed on the phones? Okay so the prototype has been developed for us to engage directly with handset manufacturers so there are a number of integration points that are very specific around user experience and hardware performance which means that the most effective way in which the solution can be enabled within a smartphone hardware is by working directly with handset manufacturers which means it's integrated a source and shipped as part of the smartphone. At this stage it's not something that's available to download and install on different types of hardware simply because there are very specific hardware requirements which would mean it would be too difficult for a user to install and expect to run the service as well as if it were integrated a source by the handset manufacturer. If an OEM decides to put Ubuntu for Android on their smartphones is it going to increase the cost of the phone and what kind of market will there be for these kind of smartphones? Well we think that there is demand for high-end smartphones so particularly from enterprise users people we see the flexibility in having full mobility of carrying a PC operating system within the particular smartphone so in terms of justifying what we believe the demand for this solution will be. At the moment there are a lot of high-end smartphones being manufactured right now. The solution that we offer is a solution that can be integrated without affecting the base cost of the current smartphone that are being developed so we're not impacting the price of the smartphone any way at all in terms of the cost of what it takes to develop that smartphone but what we are doing is improving the ability for the handset manufacturers to sell more of those smartphones and generate a higher margin from those smartphones. The solution by itself because it's going to be embedded within a very high-end particular phones these phones are being developed so there is a demand for those phones already these phones will go into the enterprise market it's just that we believe that we're now in a position where we can add further functionality to those phones that are already being they're already about to be shipped by having this particular solution available as well. If you look at Ubuntu for Android from mobility point of view which means that I need an HDMI monitor I need an HDMI cable then keyboard and mouse it will be far more easier for me to just carry my laptop and then I won't have to worry about finding a monitor at an airport what do you see about that? Yeah I mean that is a dependency in terms of having full access to and the desktop solution so you do need access to a display over HDMI and a cradle that's something which you know we believe handset manufacturers will start to address because the demand for this particular solution will mean that the peripherals will be available at the same time so as this particular hardware with this solution goes to market handset manufacturers will also be looking at making certain peripherals available such as keyboards and docking cradles and those those types of items. I think that you know to expect this particular solution to entirely replace every single context where it's useful to use a laptop is probably you know not the right way in which we would choose to go choose the messaging for this particular product to work but that aside we believe that there is a high level of functionality and flexibility in terms of the portability of the system that we've got and that will be very attractive to a to a high number of business users. Can you give us some use cases or scenarios where Ubuntu for Android makes sense for enterprise customers or individuals? There are quite a few different scenarios where we think this might be relevant and we've been having conversations with different people here this week actually who have come to us and said this is a really great idea for our enterprise so we think high-tech industries for example high-tech companies are very very interested in using this kind of solution so there are I think it depends on the particular company itself and what level of mobility that they want to they want to have available to to their enterprise workforce. I think it also boils down to the some individuals some individuals tend to be very very mobile and and we'll see this as being a very very attractive solution for them. It's it's difficult to give you a full range of particular sort of tried and tested markets that we believe are relevant but we think they are they exist and that's justified by a lot of the conversations that would be taking place this week particularly as I said with technology companies I also think given you know that we announced the service last week we received tremendous press attention overwhelmingly positive which kind of justifies the fact that there is a lot of enthusiasm about this product in the market and we believe that will translate into a high level of demand as well. I totally agree that there's a lot of excitement around Ubuntu for Android people are excited about it but can you give us some examples where Ubuntu for Android offers the solutions to the problems that enterprise customers face or can you give us some some use cases. I think perhaps one example is a an executive for example it can be it can be regarded as being very relevant in terms of an executive context so this is this is a phone that allows an executive to have access to their applications both that both their cloud-based services both their desktop services personal content as well as having you know obviously a highly efficient mobile phone as well so it's I don't think that it's I think the more relevant contexts are with individuals that have a very highly mobile nature about the way that they go about their work so you know sort of senior managers for example people that want the kind of flexibility that this offers. They would also be context in terms of field workforces for example so where the physical traveling weight of a additional piece of hardware is something that is you know perhaps cumbersome in their day-to-day work so there are field engineers as examples that have also been discussed here this week as something that this solution could be adapted to to work very well with. Can you tell us a bit more about how these two technologies are going to work together I mean you have one hardware and then you have a desktop OS which is Ubuntu and then you have a smartphone OS which is Android and they will be working together and they will be running on the same processor in the same hardware at the same time so can you explain how these two technologies work together. Okay so we have fundamentally we're integrating in two levels so the Linux kernel on this particular smartphone for example is obviously a Linux kernel Ubuntu is a very popular the most popular Linux desktop system so there is a capability at the Linux level that enables us to work with the kernel and establish what we've called a shared kernel architecture so the kernel is able to run both an Android phone system and the Ubuntu operating system at the same time so there's no virtualization taking place this is natively two OSes running at the same time and that's fundamentally achieved through working directly with the Linux kernel itself. As we start to work with handset manufacturers we're in a position to select the most effective kernel that's relevant to run both solutions as efficiently and as performant as possible and that's based on the fact that we have you know a kind of merging taking place between a Linux phone operating system and a Linux desktop operating system so that's the first fundamental in terms of how the technology works in terms of the services as well as having the Ubuntu desktop running as we saw fully fledged on the desktop with the same level of the same services that you would expect from a normal Ubuntu release we've also established a number of integration points with the Android applications so the Android system itself is completely independent of the Ubuntu system we haven't worked on the Android system at all we're just taking available APIs that are available from the application layer within the Android services such as the the dialer the address book the email clients the music player and many others and we're integrating them to make that those services available in a pure desktop environment so and that and the user interface that we've used our standard desktop applications so the email client I showed you is a desktop email client that has integration synchronization with the Android email client so it's those two levels of integration that that we've used to fundamentally build this build a solution one curiosity that I have is are these two systems running at the same time if yes what kind of impact it will have on the battery life or the user experience while a user is using Android and what happens when the phone is docked and then undocked when the phone is as a mobile phone it's obviously running Android Ubuntu is not running or having any impact on either the battery life or the performance of the of the smartphone so to stress again we that the solution we delivered does not impact or encroach on the Android system at all so when the phone is undocked and used as it should be a mobile phone there is nothing impacting the performance of the battery life of that phone itself if it has the Ubuntu for Android solution embedded within it when the phone docks the cradle itself is powering the phone so again battery life is not affected in terms of that particular in terms of docking to the phone obviously in a desktop experience we see a number of you can expect power to be available it's quite reasonable to expect that you know when you when you're docking a phone you will have power available to the phone so there's no no performance issues in that in that respect in addition to that as I said the when the phone's docks the phone starts to boots and run to operating systems both running concurrently independently of one another and the Android system is entirely functioning as it as it was before so all the phone services all the Android services then the phone system are still very much in operation it's just that the performance that the power of the phone is now focused on the desktop use case because it's reasonable to assume that when someone's docked the phone at the desktop what they want is a desktop experience and so that's when the Ubuntu operating system takes presence if you like in terms of access to services. I noticed some Android applications when the phone was docked so does that mean a user will be able to use Android applications while the phone is docked and you're using Ubuntu? So another element that's integrated within the services full access to Android applications so within the application lens that I showed you there was a cat it's a dedicated category purely around access to Android applications so you could use maps you could use any any any Android application that's on the phone is accessible through Ubuntu user interface that also includes applications that have been downloaded by market so you could pay Angry Birds on your desktop if that's if that's something there are different gaming contexts that are available it also means that as this service starts to become better known in the market Android developers can develop their applications for particular uses in the context of a display user interface so they can start to engineer a more richer experience in their applications because they know that a proportion of the downloads will be relevant for both a smartphone form factor as well as a desktop display so that's also something that could be encouraging in terms of the Android ecosystem. Which version of Android can run or support Ubuntu for Android is there any kind of dependency on a particular version of Android? Also we've prototyped on 2.3 which is Gingerbreads. Gingerbread is now being superseded by ice cream sandwich 4.0 so but there is there's no dependency on any particular version of Android so users can expect to see this on the very latest version of Android and that's dependent on the particular hardware manufacturer and what version they've selected to actually ship with. Is there any possibility of putting this solution on Android tablets as well? Well there's there isn't any plans to put it on tablet we have our own tablet development taking place so we will be launching a tablet fully fledged Ubuntu tablet working on its own operating system we will be launching our own mobile OS system so you can certainly expect to see this on our mobile OS once we actually once we bring that bring that to market but yes I think there could be use cases in a tablet as well that you know we would need to think through carefully. Ubuntu is gradually becoming omnipresent you have Ubuntu on desktop soon you will have Ubuntu's on your TVs, smartphones and tablets and you only have this Ubuntu for Android. What kind of integration will there be among all these Ubuntu powered devices for example if I am watching the movie on my Ubuntu TV and I have to go out and I want to watch that movie on a tablet without interruption is that possible or is it too far-fetched to think that there will be very tight integration among all these Ubuntu devices? Well that's a very challenging context to address for any technology company we are first and foremost a software organization so we work with hardware manufacturers we're currently focused on working obviously in addition to our core business around shipping Ubuntu within laptops in terms of user services we're obviously focused on smartphones we're working on tablets we're working in our own phone OS we're working on Ubuntu TV as I'm sure you heard from Will. How we marry all of those different services within one particular device is a very very challenging thing to address but what we do have in terms of advantage over other systems is that the Linux system is perhaps the most flexible and most easiest basis with which you would look to enable each of those services and support them on one device I can't think of another system that could do it anywhere as well as Linux so that would I think put us in a quite strong position to be able to work with people that want to deliver those those kind of services which we obviously we you know we want to do