Ubuntu Touch OS phones coming from unnamed OEM next year

Canonical’s Ubuntu Touch operating system will be headed to mobile phones made by a mystery hardware manufacturer, the company said today. Speaking to CNET, founder Mark Shuttleworth said Canonical’s made an agreement with an unnamed smartphone maker to get the operating system on “high-end” phones sometime next year. If this sounds like a broken record, you’re not mistaken. Back in January, Canonical promised devices running a standalone version of Ubuntu by early next year, a goal that went off track when crowdfunding for the company’s Edge smartphone hardware missed badly. The operating system that would have powered it lives on though, and Shuttleworth now says the company is currently in high-level discussions with at least four additional major phone makers to get Ubuntu Touch devices out the door.

Canonical is one of several companies fighting for what’s become a very fierce battle over mobile operating system market. Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS collectively run the devices used by the majority of smartphone users, while Microsoft, Blackberry, and others duke it out for the rest. Canonical is joined by other companies, including Samsung which also has a Linux-based operating system called Tizen, as well as Mozilla, which launched the first Firefox OS devices back in April.