Matt Margolis – 2/19/14
Gigaom reported today that Canonical (the company behind the Ubantu Edge crowd funding effort) CEO Mark Shuttleworth made one very interesting comment related to Apple and Sapphire displays.
“Apple just snapped up the entire 3-year supply of the same sapphire display we wanted for the Edge”
From the GTAT sapphire display side could it be possible the Canonical had a deal in place with GTAT to provide sapphire displays for the Ubantu Edge in 2014? Did Shutterworth’s comments infer GTAT is locked up with Apple and Apple only for sapphire displays for 3 years? Or did he insinuate that GTAT and Apple have larger plans to expand the sapphire furnaces inside Mesa which will essentially tie up GTAT for 3 years?
One thing that does seem certain is Ubantu’s mobile handsets will most likely make their way into consumer’s hands in 2014. The company did announce that BQ Meizu will be manufacturing Ubantu’s 2014 mobile phone. The Ubantu edge still plans to feature the phone that can be used as desktop computer if it’s plugged into a monitor and keyboard. Shutterworth also inferred that Apple and Google are also looking into making phone’s more flexible in this regard as well. Courtesy of Gigaom
Shuttleworth is convinced that the two big beasts, Google and Apple, also have their eyes on a similar prize. He pointed out that, when Google sold Motorola Mobility to Lenovo, it hung onto the division that’s developing a concept called Project Ara, in which a cellular phone module – the core PC, if you will — can be plugged into a variety of other modules in order to build different form factors. And as for Apple, he highlighted how the company is now keenly describing its iPhone chipset as desktop-class.
The Obscure Analyst 
[…] until 2014 – The only known customer besides Apple that GT had lined up for sapphire screens was Canonical (Ubuntu Edge) and Apple is the only one of the two companies who would sell high volume phones with […]
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