With the upcoming version 9.10 the Ubuntu One DropBox clone will be integrated automatically into Ubuntu's GNOME desktop. Paying customers will get a significant storage capacity upgrade.
The free Canonical services should not initially see many changes. All Ubuntu users can continue to depend on the Ubuntu One service, which mirrors and synchronizes a specific directory on the servers, for up to 2 GBytes for free. For paying users, the Ubuntu sponsor Canonical has enhanced the offering by increasing the 10 GBytes storage to 50 GBytes in the Ubuntu cloud. The cost remains the same at $10 per month.
Hope also remains for customers who want to use the Ubuntu One service not just for Ubuntu. Some developers have shown interest in porting it to Windows, Mac OS X and iPhone. Motivation for the effort will come from paying customers. As product manager Matt Griffin says in the workswithu.com project blog, if third-party developers don't provide the cross-platform support, Canonical may "revisit the discussion at the beginning of next year [2010]."