Ubuntu maker Canonical considers IPO

Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth considers listing his company. The company, best known for the popular Linux distribution Ubuntu, is not profitable enough. An IPO can change that.

Shuttleworth indicated in an interview at the OpenStack Summit that he is “seriously considering an IPO,” according to ZDNet. It is not clear when this should take place. The founder would first like to discuss this with his colleagues, who have often discussed an IPO in recent months.

Shuttleworth founded Canonical in 2004. The South African multimillionaire has been paying the company out of his own pocket ever since. It has barely been profitable all this time, although Ubuntu OpenStack does run well. That branch focuses on setting up an OpenStack environment. Customers include AT&T and Walmart.

Canonical’s OpenStack solution is running well, but this does not mean that other loss-making divisions should disappear, according to Shuttleworth. “We are continuously investing in technologies like LXD and Snappy Core Ubuntu,” he said. Both components formed the basis of the Ubuntu Touch mobile operating system and the founder expects this operating system to be profitable in the long run.

Canonical has been busy lately putting Ubuntu phones in the market. Recently, the company promised that the Meizu MX4 will appear “soon” in Europe. It would be the second Ubuntu smartphone to go on sale in Europe, after the BQ Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition.