TechCentralTechCentral
    Facebook Twitter YouTube LinkedIn
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn YouTube
    TechCentralTechCentral
    NEWSLETTER
    • News

      Fixing SA’s power crisis is not complex: it simply takes the will to do better

      12 August 2022

      Consortium makes unsolicited bid for state’s 40% stake in Telkom

      12 August 2022

      Actually, solar users should pay more to access the grid – here’s why

      12 August 2022

      Telkom says MTN talks remain on track

      12 August 2022

      Analysis | Rain muddies the waters with approach to Telkom

      11 August 2022
    • World

      Tencent woes mount, even after $560-billion selloff

      12 August 2022

      Huawei just booked its first sales rise since US blacklisting

      12 August 2022

      Apple remains upbeat about iPhone sales even as Android world suffers

      12 August 2022

      Ether at two-month high as upgrade to blockchain passes major test

      12 August 2022

      Gaming industry’s fortunes fade as pandemic ends

      11 August 2022
    • In-depth

      African unicorn Flutterwave battles fires on multiple fronts

      11 August 2022

      The length of Earth’s days has been increasing – and no one knows why

      7 August 2022

      As Facebook fades, the Mad Men of advertising stage a comeback

      2 August 2022

      Crypto breaks the rules. That’s the point

      27 July 2022

      E-mail scams are getting chillingly personal

      17 July 2022
    • Podcasts

      Qush on infosec: why prevention is always better than cure

      11 August 2022

      e4’s Adri Führi on encouraging more women into tech careers

      10 August 2022

      How South Africa can woo more women into tech

      4 August 2022

      Book and check-in via WhatsApp? FlySafair is on it

      28 July 2022

      Interview: Why Dell’s next-gen PowerEdge servers change the game

      28 July 2022
    • Opinion

      No reason South Africa should have a shortage of electricity: Ramaphosa

      11 July 2022

      Ntshavheni’s bias against the private sector

      8 July 2022

      South Africa can no longer rely on Eskom alone

      4 July 2022

      Has South Africa’s advertising industry lost its way?

      21 June 2022

      Rob Lith: What Icasa’s spectrum auction means for SA companies

      13 June 2022
    • Company Hubs
      • 1-grid
      • Altron Document Solutions
      • Amplitude
      • Atvance Intellect
      • Axiz
      • BOATech
      • CallMiner
      • Digital Generation
      • E4
      • ESET
      • Euphoria Telecom
      • IBM
      • Kyocera Document Solutions
      • Microsoft
      • Nutanix
      • One Trust
      • Pinnacle
      • Skybox Security
      • SkyWire
      • Tarsus on Demand
      • Videri Digital
      • Zendesk
    • Sections
      • Banking
      • Broadcasting and Media
      • Cloud computing
      • Consumer electronics
      • Cryptocurrencies
      • Education and skills
      • Energy
      • Fintech
      • Information security
      • Internet and connectivity
      • Internet of Things
      • Investment
      • IT services
      • Motoring and transport
      • Public sector
      • Science
      • Social media
      • Talent and leadership
      • Telecoms
    • Advertise
    TechCentralTechCentral
    Home»News»Shuttleworth finds earthly riches with Ubuntu

    Shuttleworth finds earthly riches with Ubuntu

    News By Agency Staff12 December 2017
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email
    Mark Shuttleworth. Image c/o markshuttleworth.com

    He’s best known for being the world’s first “Afronaut”, but since returning to Earth from his 2002 trip on Russia’s Soyuz TM-34 rocket ship, Cape Town native Mark Shuttleworth set about with the conquest of a much more lucrative universe: the Internet of things.

    Shuttleworth created Ubuntu, an open-source Linux operating system that helps connect everything from drones to thermostats to the Internet. His company, Canonical Group, makes money from about 800 paying customers, including Netflix, Tesla and Deutsche Telekom, which pay for support services. Its success has helped boost his net worth to US$1bn, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

    “It’s destructive to be too focused on that,” Shuttleworth said of his wealth in an interview at Bloomberg’s office in Boston. “It’s just a distraction from whether you have your finger on the pulse of what’s next.”

    Canonical may not be as big as Red Hat, but there are probably areas Red Hat isn’t doing as much work in, so there is opportunity there for somebody to come in and fill those gaps

    What’s next for the 44-year-old mogul is ensuring Ubuntu is the base language used across the Internet of things, where end-point devices such as televisions and cars have their own programming and cloud connectivity.

    Canonical sees as many as three million downloads of its software and 50m security updates each day, and because Ubuntu is free and doesn’t require registration, the company isn’t sure how many devices are running on it today.

    “Canonical may not be as big as Red Hat, but there are probably areas Red Hat isn’t doing as much work in, so there is opportunity there for somebody to come in and fill those gaps,” said Tim Klasell, Senior Research Analyst at Northland Securities. “Those gaps have become big enough because Linux has become big enough.”

    Red Hat is the biggest Linux provider and Ubuntu “is a close second”, said Mandeep Singh, an infrastructure software analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence. “Amazon, Google and pretty much every large tech company which has developed their cloud in-house uses Ubuntu or one of the other open-source guys.”

    Revenue

    Canonical had revenue of $92m in 2016, a 61% increase from a year earlier, according to Gartner Group, a technology research firm. Shuttleworth declined to confirm those figures.

    Shuttleworth was raised in Cape Town, where his father was a surgeon. After graduating from the University of Cape Town in 1996, he started Thawte Consulting, which quickly became one the largest online providers of digital certificates, which are used to help prove that websites are legitimate. In 2000, he sold Thawte to VeriSign for $575m in stock. He cashed out the shares ahead of the dot-com bust, probably making more than $700m, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

    Flush with cash and nurturing a lifelong fascination with the cosmos, Shuttleworth became the second person, after Wilshire Associates founder Dennis Tito, to pay Russia $20m for a ticket to space. He trained for a year in Russia and with Nasa to qualify as one of three crew members on a mission to the International Space Station in 2002. During the 10-day odyssey, the first African in space conducted experiments he commissioned and spoke to Nelson Mandela.

    Back on Earth, he formed an Africa-focused technology venture capital arm, HBD, relocated to tax-friendly Isle of Man and funded a foundation that provides grants to idealistic entrepreneurs. In 2004, he started programming Ubuntu as an open-source project and formed Canonical to explore business prospects arising from it.

    “It gave me the luxury of being able to focus on the things I thought were really meaningful and interesting and deep,” Shuttleworth said. “Open-source software is deep. You have to get under the hood a little bit, then you realise it is everywhere. It is defining innovation today.”

    You have to get under the hood a little bit, then you realise it is everywhere. It is defining innovation today

    For years, the company used Linux to provide all sorts of applications, including trying to supplant desktop and phone operating systems. Earlier this year, Shuttleworth canned those efforts to turn his 500 employees to supporting and expanding Canonical’s paying Ubuntu client base. Almost every employee works remotely, in more than 400 cities. Teams meet in person every quarter and, as needed, employees converge on client sites.

    Shuttleworth, who remains the company’s sole owner, said he aims to take it public within five years.

    “The vision for Canonical is to provide the platform that you see everywhere other than the personal domain. We won’t make a dent in phone or PCs. But pretty much your entire data centre runs Linux and every other thing in the room is running Linux,” Shuttleworth said. “Can we help deliver that innovation and do it in a format that is secure, reliable and very, very cheap? That’s an interesting set of challenges.”  — Reported by Brendan Coffey, (c) 2017 Bloomberg LP

    Canonical Mark Shuttleworth Thawte Consulting top Ubuntu Verisign
    Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email
    Previous ArticleAmazon emerges as major player in streaming music
    Next Article SA government still keen on net neutrality rules

    Related Posts

    Fixing SA’s power crisis is not complex: it simply takes the will to do better

    12 August 2022

    Consortium makes unsolicited bid for state’s 40% stake in Telkom

    12 August 2022

    Actually, solar users should pay more to access the grid – here’s why

    12 August 2022
    Add A Comment

    Comments are closed.

    Promoted

    Get your brand in front of TechCentral’s amazing audience

    12 August 2022

    Pricing Beyond CMYK: printers answer the FAQs

    11 August 2022

    How secure is your cloud?

    10 August 2022
    Opinion

    No reason South Africa should have a shortage of electricity: Ramaphosa

    11 July 2022

    Ntshavheni’s bias against the private sector

    8 July 2022

    South Africa can no longer rely on Eskom alone

    4 July 2022

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    © 2009 - 2022 NewsCentral Media

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.