Canonical Marketing Manager Gerry Carr, a stand-up guy who doesn’t hide from facts, conceded in The Register article that:

“Wikimedia has not engaged Canonical for support contracts but there is some discussion about Wikimedia using Canonical’s Landscape system management tool, announced in March, as well as doing some sort of custom support contract.”

Buried, inaccurate.

First of all, the fact that such a huge company has chosen the Ubuntu server above all the others will be a great boost for the Ubuntu Server.

Secondly, such information will possibly persuade other organisations to move over to Ubuntu and many of those will probably want service contracts.

I think MS (unfortunate initials) will be thrilled at the vote of confidence by Wikipedia and that it will give all Canonical employers a buzz of excitement and the impetus to srive forwards.

Immediate money is important for a business, but a respect amongst its peers is usually a guarantee for future money.

Ampers.

I’m not suggesting that Wikimedia should have to pay.

But I am suggesting that Canonical will need to continue to think of new revenue generating business models in order to ensure the company someday turns a profit and Ubuntu continues to thrive.

The way I think of it, parts of it are. We clearly have no intention of making a profit on the operating system itself – we give that away. And so we build around that core platform a series of service businesses. And we have a number of those; some of them are closer to turning a profit than others.

And yes, I believe very strongly that we have to strive to deliver both the very best of Free software, and to do so on a commercially sustainable basis, and I think we can achieve that. ”

via http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/12068_3757246_2

However Shuttleworth has hinted in several places that Ubuntu isn’t self-sustainable yet (pretty much, losing money).

They have already stated that they will not charge for their desktop or server versions–both are free to download and use. Instead, Canonical hopes that businesses will buy support contracts and suppirt the effort that way.

On one hand, this sounds plausible, but when people speak about Linux being free, paid support seems like a cotradiction…to some. And many businesses already have IT staff that knows what their doing. So, no contracts or supportus purchased.

Canonical may not be running out of money any time soon thanks to Shuttleworth’s generosity; but Shuttleworth has made it clear that Ubuntu is an investment not a philanthropic project. He expects a return on his investment. And to turn out a product that is free to all without the need to buy support contracts will, I believe, eventually lead to Ubuntu’s decline unless…unless Shuttleworth changes his business model where the server is concerned.

Even if Wikipedia brands every page with “Powered by Ubuntu”, it will not guarantee a revenue stream for Canonical. Quite the opposite. Others may see the cost savings, switch and still not buy one supoprt contract.

From now on, the question isn’t one of whether Ubuntu’s uptake is increasing. The question should now be “is Canonical gaining any additional revenue from the new adopters?”

Every time a business switches to Ubuntu without buying any support from Canonical, it is a net loss, not necessarily a gain.

After all, what does it profit Canonical if every desktop used Ubuntu but nobody paid for it? In this regard, smaller niche distributions with a product for sale (Slackware, Vector, etc) have a better business model than Canonical. Why? At least they are making money from their users.