I just updated my laptop to Ubuntu 12.04, the latest version of the popular Linux distribution. I couldn’t say this ten or even three years ago, but it’s better than Windows. Everything just works out of the box, and the interface is intuitive. It also doesn’t lock me out of my own files, which Windows tends to do. The screenshots in this post were taken from my machine today.
It isn’t all peachy though – while there’s a good selection of applications, it could be better. It also lacks association with applications that are known to mainstream users. Windows has Word, Mac has Garage Band, and the iOS has Instagram. When it comes to operating systems, apps are everything.
I think now that we have a convergence between mobile and desktop operating systems, there’s a real opportunity here for desktop Linux distributions. Simply said: have a popular distro like Ubuntu be able to run Android apps out of the box. You can right now through the emulator that comes with the SDK provided by Google, but that doesn’t have a native feel to it. You want the Android app to appear to run like any other program (emphasis on appear.)
Ride on the popularity of Android. It and the iOS are a developer hot bed with thousands making programs that people like you and me want to use. People go where the apps are, and I believe there’s a chance here to pull people away from Windows. Especially if you (or Canonical, the people behind Ubuntu) can market the fact that it can also run Windows applications anyways.
Or perhaps I’m completely out to lunch.