During a phone briefing today, Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth described the Ubuntu 9.10 desktop, server and cloud strategy to members of the IT media. WorksWithU tuned in and posed some key questions to Shuttleworth. Here are 10 highlights from the call.

Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth on Oct. 26 is set to speak with the press about Ubuntu 9.10 Desktop Edition and Server Edition. WorksWithU will be extra careful not to “hype” Ubuntu 9.10 over the next few days. Instead, we hope to ask Shuttleworth some timely questions about the new Ubuntu and Canonical’s long-term business strategy. Here’s a sampling of issues on our mind.

Do you think that free software is important to cloud computing? I personally think it is crucial, and here is why.

More than 600 people registered to attend Atlanta Linux Fest, which was held Sept. 19. Many of the standing-room-only sessions focused on Canonical and Ubuntu. Here are nine Ubuntu-oriented highlights from the event.

Canonical has launched Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud Services, an effort to help customers build and support private clouds. The announcement, leveraging Ubuntu Server Edition, caught The VAR Guy’s attention for two key reasons.

It’s another small step for Canonical’s Ubuntu business, and a giant leap forward for the company’s Landscape management platform. The new Landscape 1.3 release allows IT managers and resellers to remotely administer physical or virtual servers within a corporate network or on the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). But this is more than a technology story. Landscape could play a critical role in Canonical’s effort to build revenue-generating services.

When Mark Shuttleworth announced the future Ubuntu 9.10 release, Karmic Koala, the goals he outlined for the server version were all to do with cloud computing but you might be asking ‘What is cloud computing ?’ I answer this question and investigate what it can do for Ubuntu?

WorksWithU’s sister site, The VAR Guy, is taking a close look at Google Apps, and open source applications running in Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). What works? What doesn’t? What are the financial benefits? What are the hidden risks? To learn more join The VAR Guy Live webcast on April 15 at 2:00pm eastern. Check out these three guest speakers and then register now.

The Ubuntu Server revolution is starting but it doesn’t involve traditional on-premise systems. A few hours ago I mentioned Turnkey Linux was putting Ubuntu Server software appliances in the cloud. But I overlooked another major story: RightScale — a well-known cloud computing company — today announced “full support” for Ubuntu as part of the RightScale Cloud Management platform. It’s big news. Here’s why.

A blog entry over on ZDnet makes the case that Amazon.com and Dell are Canonical’s two most important Ubuntu partners. I firmly agree. Here’s why.