Portland, OR: Sputnik started, Barton George, Dell’s project Sputnik lead and director of web vertical marketing,   told me at OSCon as a six-month exploratory pilot to create an Ubuntu Linux-based developer laptop, It’s not just an idea now. Dell is taking Project Sputnik from pilot to product this fall. 

This official developer laptop is based on the Dell XPS 13 with Ubuntu 12.04 Long Term Support (LTS)  This PC will offer developers a complete client-to-cloud solution. The Sputnik will allow developers to create “microclouds” on their laptops, simulating a proper, at-scale environment, and then deploy that environment seamlessly to the cloud. George explained it would use LXC virtual environments containers for the microclouds. These cloud applications can then be deployed to Ubuntu instances running on the Amazon, OpenStack, bare-metal with Management as a Service (MAAS), and, eventually, Microsoft Azure clouds.

A first look at Ubuntu 12.04 (Gallery)

The Sputnik won’t be just for cloud developers. George said that there has been an incredible amount of interest in the project. “When I first put the word out I thought it would be a success if I got 4,000 hits on the proposal. It’s now over 50,000 hits.” Since then developers have been telling Dell in great detail what they want from a developer’s laptop and Dell has been listening.
A first look at Dell’s ‘Sputnik’ Ubuntu Linux developer laptop. More >