Canonical unveils Live Mesh challenger

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 12 May 2009 at 16:18

Canonical has quietly slipped a rival to Microsoft's Live Mesh service into beta.

Dubbed Ubuntu One, the service mimics Live Mesh and Dropbox by allowing people to synchronise files between multiple machines.

However, unlike those services which can be used across multiple operating systems, Ubuntu One has been developed to be used exclusively with Ubuntu 9.04. There is a web interface though, which means files will be accessible from any machine - though you won't be able to synchronise them.

Ubuntu One is likely to face strong competition from Dropbox, which grants the same 2GB of free storage, but offers 50GB rather than 10GB for your $10 per month. Dropbox can also be installed on Linux, Windows and Mac machines, giving users far wider access to their files.

Of course, there's always the possibility that Canonical could push Ubuntu One by folding it into the core distribution, though the company says it has no plans to do this.

"We've always thought of Ubuntu One as an additional service," says Canonical's marketing manager Gerry Carr. "Of course we believe they work well together, but Ubuntu doesn't require Ubuntu One to run, so we're not thinking of building it into the distribution."

Carr says Canonical has been working on Ubuntu One for the past six months, but wouldn't be drawn on how the service is likely to evolve.

"It's day one of the beta and we've decided to avoid a big, public push in favour of offering to friends and family, if you like. It's very early days and we've got to get a feel for it, and work out the kinks. Anything beyond that is 'to be announced'."

Anybody looking to sign up for the Ubuntu One beta will need an existing account with Launchpad, the code review service. You then need to visit the Ubuntu One website, sign in and wait for the confirmation email.