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Phoenix666 writes:

Canonical CEO Jane Silber announced her departure yesterday, seven years after then-CEO Shuttleworth asked her to take over the company's top spot. She previously served as Canonical's chief operating officer.

"I originally agreed to be CEO for five years and we’ve extended my tenure as CEO by a couple of years already," Silber wrote. "We’ve been preparing for a transition for some time by strengthening the executive leadership team and maturing every aspect of the company, and earlier this year Mark and I decided that now is the time to effect this transition. Over the next three months I will remain CEO but begin to formally transfer knowledge and responsibility to others in the executive team. In July, Mark will retake the CEO role and I will move to the Canonical Board of Directors."

During Silber's years as CEO, Shuttleworth still played a key role in company strategy and product design and continued to invest his personal fortune in the company so that it could expand into new areas such as smartphones. But last week, Shuttleworth announced that Canonical will stop working on Unity 8, the user interface that was supposed to act as a bridge between the phone and desktop. Canonical is halting its phone and tablet development and next year will switch back to GNOME on the desktop.

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