![\"Mark](\"\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/mark_shuttleworth_321811360.jpg\" "\\"Mark")
Canonical has more than 200 employees in Europe, the US and Taiwan but has not yet recorded a positive cash flow even though about 8-million people use its software.<\/p>\nSouth African internet billionaire Mark Shuttleworth has enough cash to pump into his software company, Canonical, saying he is being careful with his pennies but is willing to continue supporting a good investment.<\/p>\n
Shuttleworth founded Canonical in 2004 to develop free software for companies and private users around the world. He committed an initial $10m, despite admitting he was not sure whether giving away its software could ever be commercially viable.<\/p>\n
This week, Shuttleworth held a press conference confirming that Canonical was still not profitable, but making it clear that he was happy to keep supporting it as a philanthropic venture. His private resources come from the $575m that he earned in 1999 by selling Thawte, the Cape-based digital security company he founded.<\/p>\n
Canonical develops the Ubuntu operating system using open-source technology, allowing anyone to modify it or translate it into different languages.<\/p>\n
That makes it particularly appealing to emerging nations which find the licence fees for big-brand software packages prohibitive.<\/p>\n
Reporting on the conference, the online news site The Register quoted Shuttleworth as saying: “We continue to require investment. I can continue to be careful with my pennies as I make what I consider to be a good investment.”<\/p>\n
Canonical has more than 200 employees in Europe, the US and Taiwan but has not yet recorded a positive cash flow even though about 8-million people use its software.<\/p>\n
Asked for an accurate figure on how many people use it, Shuttleworth replied: “We actually have no idea.”<\/p>\n
Research house IDC ran a survey last year showing that 20% of large US companies had Ubuntu installed, and IDC estimates that Ubuntu holds a 3% share of the market for server operating systems.<\/p>\n
Canonical turns over “several million dollars” a year from selling support and related services for Ubuntu, but Shuttleworth said he had no objection to funding it for the next three to five years.<\/p>\n
The company could become cash-positive in two years, but it would probably take longer as more investment was needed to make Ubuntu more pervasive.<\/p>\n
Asked whether anyone could make money from supplying free software, Shuttleworth said they could not, “and that is a good thing”. The company gives away the software and makes money from technical support.<\/p>\n