New Canonical services help businesses get ahead with Ubuntu Server and Ubuntu Desktop

“Ubuntu Advantage” provides configurable support services to businesses

LONDON, June 7, 2010 — Canonical today introduced Ubuntu Advantage – a comprehensive service that combines systems management tools, technical support, access to online resources, training and legal assurance. It is built to help businesses who have deployed Ubuntu as a desktop and/or server solution to become more successful in their adoption of the platform. The new subscription package gives organisations a single service to underwrite their investment in Ubuntu and is split into different service levels to cater to the different uses of Ubuntu in business.

“It has become clear as the use of Ubuntu in the enterprise increases, that businesses are now using Ubuntu in more areas of business than before, including as a cloud platform,” said Neil Levine, vice president of Corporate Services at Canonical. “Ubuntu Advantage provides the set of services that companies need to make Ubuntu a core part of their IT strategy. Flexible pricing and a choice of service levels means any business can realise what our customers already experience – that to optimise your Ubuntu deployment, engaging with the appropriate Canonical service is the easiest and fastest route to success.”

The systems management and monitoring tool, Landscape, is central to the Ubuntu Advantage service. It significantly reduces the time necessary to manage large numbers of machines by enabling systems administrators to manage them as easily as one – including physical, virtualised and even cloud platforms. Landscape can automate repeated tasks, provide consistency and eliminate errors so that IT staff can spend time on more business-critical activities.

“Landscape saves us many hours a week that we can now spend optimizing our existing services and developing new offerings for our brand serverloft to increase our competitive advantage,” said Guido Nickels, head of System Administration at PlusServer AG.

Through technical support, access to expert help and legal assurance, Ubuntu Advantage enables organisations to place the Ubuntu platform at the core of their IT infrastructure. Businesses can select a single subscription service that covers and scales to their requirements rather than an one-size-fits-all approach. Technical support can be selected depending on the complexity of the workload making it accessible and cost-effective for more businesses.

“Both Landscape and technical support from Canonical have been instrumental to our company’s successful use of Ubuntu,” said Andy Newton, director at Emphony Technologies. “It has been significantly easier to grow and manage our infrastructure using these services than going alone.”

Pricing and service structure for Ubuntu Advantage

OR SEE: http://www.canonical.com/enterprise-services/ubuntu-advantage/overview

Useful Links

• Ubuntu Advantage for Servers specification and pricing
• Ubuntu Advantage for Desktops specification and pricing
• Case Study for PlusServer’s use of Landscape

About Canonical

Canonical provides engineering, online and professional services to Ubuntu partners and customers worldwide. As the company behind the Ubuntu project, Canonical is committed to the production and support of Ubuntu – an ever-popular and fast-growing open-source operating system. It aims to ensure that Ubuntu is available to every organisation and individual on servers, desktops, laptops and netbooks.

Canonical partners with computer hardware manufacturers to certify Ubuntu, provides migration, deployment, support and training services to businesses, and offers online services direct to end users. Canonical also builds and maintains collaborative, open-source development tools to ensure that organisations and individuals can participate fully in innovations within the open-source community. For more information, please visit www.canonical.com.