Ubuntu operating system seems to be the other operating system that will be joining the league. It is expected that smartphones based on Ubuntu operating system will be available to the customers by October 2013. This information was given by Mark Shuttleworth, who is the Founder and CEO of Canonical Ltd. Canonical (that provides services for corporate customers using Ubuntu operating system) in an interview with Wall Street Journal. He further stated that the smartphones will be available in "two large geographic markets in October," without clearly disclosing which these two markets will be.
Ubuntu OS is an open source operating system, which is based on the Debian Linux distribution and seeks to offer consumers a unified experience on TVs, phones and PCs. This operating system for smartphones became official for smartphone in January 2013. As per The Wall Street Journal this operating system will be available to the developers starting February 2013. The developers will be getting a Galaxy Nexus smartphone, which will be running on Ubuntu operating system.
As Ubuntu OS can support both ARM and x86 processors, it can run on most Android-based smartphones that are currently available in the market. As of now there is no formal word on which smartphones will be officially running on Ubuntu OS and what will be their pricing.
Apart from Ubuntu OS, the other smartphones that are expected to see the light of the day this year are Sailfish operating system, which is being developed by ex-Nokia employees and Tizen.
These new operating system will be competing head on with the existing iOS, Android and Windows Phone 8. It will be interesting to see if they are able to make a dent in their dominance or will they go the WebOS way.
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