Just spotted this interview with Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth, who spoke with Lifehacker.com about Ubuntu’s productivity benefits. Shuttleworth notes that he’s already running Gutsy Gibbon, the next version of Ubuntu slated to be released in October. He also praises Thunderbird, the email system. I’m still on an email client who’s name I’d rather not mention. Might be time to make the move to Thunderbird.

I’m as guilty as the next guy of creating Top 10 Lists just to grab a few eyeballs on the Web. But the following list, highlighting 10 reasons Ubuntu beats Windows Vista, seems like a stretch in some areas. What’s your reaction.

The next release of Ubuntu, code-named Gutsy Gibbon, is expected to be released in October. What will it include? Here’s a look at the latest details, from the UK’s Inquirer.

Bummer. An Ubuntu Developer Summit is scheduled for Oct. 27 thru Nov. 2 in Cambridge, Mass. I’ll be tied up at a small business summit in Florida that week. But I’ll be sure to cover the Ubuntu event from afar. Here’s more info for those who want to attend the developer summit.

As we’ve reported, Canonical is working with Intel on a mobile version of Ubuntu. You can expect it to land on tablets and other mobile devices. Care to learn more? Here’s a timely interview with Canonical’s CTO.

Ok, this blog entry isn’t about Ubuntu. But it does focus on revenue opportunities in the open source market. Sure, Red Hat is the rare open source company that has launched a successful IPO and generated healthy profits. But at least two other open source software companies are on my radar for eventual IPOs.

I’m out in Colorado Springs this week for an Avnet/Sun Microsystems partner conference. Although I’m blogging away from my MacBook Pro, I was pleased to see dozens of attendees using Sun Ray 270 thin clients. Sun donated the systems for the event’s cyber cafe. Each thin client includes the Thunderbird e-mail client, StarOffice 8 and Firefox. Sun would be wise to show these thin clients — and their open source components — at additional events across the country. Most users don’t even realize they’re on a thin client rather than a PC.

Google vs. Microsoft is always a fun topic. Throw in open source software and Sun Microsystems, and the discussion gets even more fun. Apparently, Google is quietly offering Sun’s StarOffice to customers. That’s suite … er, sweet! StarOffice, the big brother to OpenOffice, will certainly benefit from the Google exposure. And in my experience, OpenOffice is a great, free, reliable replacement for about 95 percent of all Microsoft Office users.

In some areas of the world, Hewlett-Packard is winning business selling custom PCs with Ubuntu Linux preinstalled. But now, Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth is on record stating that HP and Canonical are not — I repeat, not — discussing any deals to preinstall Ubuntu on HP systems. Bummer.