Ubuntu maker Canonical has announced its plans to bring the much loved open source operating system to smartphones and tablet PC devices.

According to an articleon The Register, the company plans to introduce the mobile version of the operating system on tablets, smartphones and connected TVs by April 2014.

The move could allow Ubuntu to siphon market share from Google's Android, but given the fact that it is shipping so late, Android would have become virtually unassailable by then in the smartphone market.

The announcement came from Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth at the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Florida.

The company plans to start work on the mobile version of Ubuntu soon after it finishes the next version of Linux based Ubuntu.

Shuttleworth claimed that smartphone makers like HTC and Samsung will be looking for more choices to diversify, so they don't remain completely dependent on Google Android, especially after the search engine giant announced its intentions to acquire Motorola Mobility.

"We want to expand that [desktop Ubuntu] now to include what we see as the modern personal computing platforms of handsets - phones and tablets - as well as smart screens, whether they be TVs or other devices like smart monitors," said Shuttleworth.