Mr. Duval’s new project, Ulteo, has held my curiosity since it was announced many many months ago (I believe it was to be released in August, then October, then November, now…). It started as the news spread across the Web that Duval was no longer with Mandriva/Mandrake. An early Mandrake distribution was the first to really win me on Linux. I’d gone through a few others before it, which were a little like unmannered cave agoraphobes from a time before evolution (they all came up for light eventually). Perhaps this is all just OS nostalgia, I just want to comment after receiving the first Ulteo newsletter today.
My curiosity centers on what exactly it is that Ulteo will offer. How will it compel new interest from users of the existing distributions? From the message boards and the few leaked screenshots/web-based applications in the recent past, my impression is that it will be relatively consumer-oriented. It seems to have some sort of goal for making the functionality behind mobility and access to personal stuff, easy. I can imagine a number of ideas, perhaps pitting users’ own storage sources against their own loneliness and making them seamless with central storage source that replicates what is available in the home. I’m only imagining. And I read Ulteo has Ubuntu underpinnings.
A number of companies are developing or have developed Web OSes. I don’t know what is compelling about these systems. Those that I’ve tried feel like nifty gadgets but I don’t use the utility. I hope Ulteo is more, if for no other reason than to appreciate a good idea. It must be, the newsletters say so.
Why isn’t there more gossip about Ulteo? Maybe they needed to send a few more newsletters. I’ll watch the Ulteo site on the fifth and the sixth of this month, as that’s when they say they’ll unveil their full plans.