Go ahead and read Ubuntu’s marketing kick: Is Canonical the next Apple? and then come back. I’ll try and make it worth your while, but I can’t promise anything.
I don’t really have much to say about the article at all, but it is pretty normal tech press coverage of an event. Namely, it is boring and doesn’t add anything of substance. What I want to really focus on is the title, and really just the phrase “Is Canonical the next Apple?”
Besides an obvious answer of “no” (both because it is absurd and because it has a question mark at the end), it really brings to light another problem we all tend to have. The idea that Canonical (or anyone else) needs to be the next Apple (or anyone else) is absolutely ridiculous and counter productive.
Let Canonical be the first Canonical and Apple be the first (and last) Apple. We should never want another company or person to gun to be like another company or person. You can feel free to emulate aspects of other people or parts of a company, but why would be want to limit ourselves or our companies?
We don’t want Canonical to be like Red Hat or Microsoft or Apple or anyone else. We want them to be Canonical and to keep doing things their way just like we don’t want Apple to be like Microsoft or Google or anyone else either. To do so is to eliminate what makes companies unique. What a bland place to wish for.