There’s nothing better for software innovation than getting a bunch of software innovators together, adding some hardware experts, some visionaries, a bunch of cool hardware, feedback from consumers… and a few glasses of alcohol. That about sums up what happened at IDF last week. Without reading any of the Ultimate Coder Ultimate Challenge blogs this week (see more below though) I know that all of the teams were stimulated to make changes, add features and optimize others. It’s late in the game (only 2 weeks to go) but I’m sure that there will be a few beta’s that get feature upgrades. Dangerous!

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I was invited by Intel to meet some developers yesterday. The Intel Ultrabook developers meet-up in Munich was casual and informative. We all enjoyed hands-on with some of the latest Ultrabooks but the conversation about why Ultrabooks could be interesting for developers was, for me, more interesting.

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We’re big supporters of what Dell and Canonical are doing with project Sputnik. It’s not just another Ubuntu-based Linux distro, it’s a Linux distro with funding and a defined hardware target and the fact that the hardware target is an Ultrabook makes it even better. If you’re a Linux fan, check out our first post on the subject and then, read-on here…

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Dell have just kicked off a project with Ubuntu Canonical. Project Sputnik is a 6-month effort to try to pull together a solid Ubuntu build on a solid laptop, for developers. The Dell XPS13 has been chosen as the first target platform.

We’re constantly getting questions from developers about which Ultrabook to buy but the problems is the word ‘developers.’ I’m a developer myself but the only tool I use is VI as I hack my PHP and HTML for the Ultrabooknews product database. Other, more serious, developers need source code control, collaboration tools, compilers and integrated development environments. Project Sputnik is aiming to deliver a standard Ubuntu build (currently based on 12.04) and additional, downloadable profiles. So if you’re developing for the web, you might add in a web-focused profile. If you’re developing for Android, there could be a better profile for you.

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In addition to the expected smartphone, tablet and AppUp announcements at Mobile World Congress, Intel’s European teams will be holding a ‘Platform of Choice’ event on the 28th Feb which will offer you a update on Intel’s activities in various sectors, including Ultrabooks. There will be both global and European focus at the event. I’ll be attending and I hope to see you there too.

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