Ian Drew, the vice-president of marketing at ARM and Jane Silber, chief operating officer at Canonical have announced the start of a new project, which could easily become popular worldwide. The popular mobile processor manufacturer and the Ubuntu developer agreed to start developing a new system-on-a-chip platform (SoC) for netbooks. This is a very good timing and opportunity because Intel is the only competitor on this field. Neither AMD and VIA have a directly competing product. The system should be combining the Ubuntu Desktop operative system, optimized for the ARMv7 architecture processors, like Cortex A8 and Cortex A9.
This kind of project could promise a system that is truly power efficient, which is one of the main things that ARM and Canonical are aiming. The promise also includes a rich video reproducing engine which will not compromise power consumption. Promises like this can be very hard to fulfill, but there is no reason for doubt (yet).
An arrangement like this is a big win for Ubuntu, too, which really cannot be satisfied with their OEM market share. For example, the contract made with Dell made big expectations, but it seems like it did not get the company popularity they wanted so much.
In addition, this cooperation includes working with Debian, GNOME and Mozilla communities.
This is not the first contact between ARM and Canonical, because ARM is one of the Canonical commercial supporters.
Systems developed by ARM and Canonical should be available in April 2009.