Canonical Ubuntu Linux Names Matt Asay as New COO

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There are few people that follow the Linux and open source market that have not heard of Matt Asay.  I first met Asay at an Open Source event in Toronto nearly six years ago when he was working for Novell. He then moved on to work for Alfresco and now he’s the new COO of Ubuntu Linux vendor Canonical.

Asay is going to fill the open spot left by outgoing COO Jane Silber who is now becoming the CEO replacing founder Mark Shuttleworth.

Aside from his ‘day’ job, many of us follow Asay on Twitter and even more go to the Open Source Business Conference which he founded. To say he’s a leader and open source evangelist would be an understatement in the extreme.

With Asay in the COO spot, Canonical now has an influential Linux luminary to help drive their operational – and likely marketing efforts as well.

I’m not surprised to see Asay move to Canonical, I’ve seen plenty of his thoughtful posts on CNET (where he has a popular blog) about Canonical and its founder Shuttleworth.

Will this change the competitive landscape for Linux?

Not really – this is just another ‘feather in the cap’ for Ubuntu. Red Hat and Novell don’t need to run for the hills and in fact having an outspoken community advocate like Asay in a top Linux exec role could help the whole industry. A rising tide lifts all boats right?