“The 14.04 LTS release offers a solid, intuitive experience which is easy to manage,” Jane Silber, CEO at Canonical said in a statement. “It is a viable and affordable alternative for those organisations considering a switch from Microsoft, and specifically those replacing XP or Windows 7 as they come to the end of life.”
With full support and five years of free security updates, Ubuntu says its the most stable and secure release firms will ever receive. The firm also added that the UK OS secutiry arm’s CESG found it to be the most secure desktop or mobile operating system due to its security features and timely security updates.
Ubuntu 14.04 LTS includes full-disk encryption, added AppArmor profiles and policy, as well as AppArmor improvements for interprocess communications between confined applications and has a seamless migration path for organisations upgrading from the previous 12.04 LTS. With an improved Unity UI, and good for both desktops and laptops with multi-touch trackpads and touchscreens, the release has business tools such as remote delivery of applications, compatibility with Windows file formats, browser-based cloud solutions and the Microsoft Office-compatible LibreOffice suite. The 14.04 LTS release also signals continued development toward Canonical’s vision for true convergence across desktop, phone and tablet.
According to Stéphane Dumond, Chef Information and Security Officer at the French Gendarmerie, “Our project to replace Windows XP with Ubuntu on over 70,000 desktops is returning significant benefits; already we’ve lowered the total cost of ownership by a ratio of 40 per cent, eliminated licence costs and radically reduced technical problems. Ubuntu’s LTS releases, like 14.04, offer levels of stability, security, cost savings and ease of management that would appeal to any CIO looking at desktop deployments.”
Ubuntu’s dedicated Chinese operating system, Ubuntu Kylin was also released today.
“In migrating to Ubuntu desktop, we’ve saved over $360,000 in year one of our high school deployment,” says Charlie Reisinger, Technology Director at Penn Manor School District. “I trust Ubuntu to power our student laptops because it is a fantastic playground for education and provides our students the freedom to pursue their personal learning passions. Over the past three years, we have migrated to Ubuntu across our entire district; it is our primary OS for 5,200 students. Ubuntu is proving cost effective, secure and easy to use, and we’re looking forward to upgrading to the latest 14.04 LTS release.”
The Ubuntu 14.04 LTS can be downloaded here while the Ubuntu 14.04 Kylin can be found here here. Sold across the world and pre-loaded on hardware from partners including Dell, HP and Lenovo.
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