Canonical, the company behind the Ubuntu Linux distribution, announced today that its Ubuntu One cloud service will soon gain support for mobile contact synchronization. The feature will be available to users who are paying for the higher tier of Ubuntu One service.

Canonical officially launched the Ubuntu One service last year alongside the release of Ubuntu 9.10. The service allows users to keep files and some application data synchronized between multiple computers. The company is planning to roll out several significant new Ubuntu One features when Ubuntu 10.04, codenamed Lucid Lynx, is released later this month. The new Ubuntu One music store, which is integrated into the Rhythmbox audio player, will use Ubuntu One to deploy purchased music to all of the user's computers. Much like the music store, the new mobile synchronization features are opening up for testing, but will officially launch alongside Ubuntu 10.04.

Ubuntu One mobile synchronization is powered by Funambol, a mobile push synchronization platform that is partly distributed under open source software licenses. Ubuntu One contact synchronization will work on the wide range of devices that are supported by Funambol's client software. You can download the synchronization program for your specific device by selecting it at the beta phone page on the Ubuntu One website.

Canonical is also releasing its own branded Funambol-based mobile client applications for certain platforms. For example, the company is offering an Ubuntu One contact synchronization program for the iPhone, which is now available from the iTunes stores. Plugins are available for several desktop applications too, such as Thunderbird.

The underlying Funambol technology supports push synchronization for calendars, notes, and other kinds of data, but Ubuntu One's mobile sync only supports contacts at the present time. It's possible that its scope will be expanded as the service evolves.

Canonical developer Martin Albisetti described the new mobile sync feature in an announcement today on the Ubuntu One users mailing list.

"Getting contacts on CouchDB and replicating between desktops and the cloud was the first big step. The second, and much bigger step, is to actually get those contacts from and to mobile phones. To achieve this, we have partnered with a company called Funambol, who share our views on open source, and have an established a proven software stack that synchronizes thousands of mobile phones and other devices," Albisetti wrote. "Right now we're at a stage where we feel confident opening up the service for wider testing. We strongly recommend that [testers] have a backup of [their] contacts since we've only tested with a hand-full of phone models at this point."

Although the service is intended for paying Ubuntu One customers, nonsubscribers will get an opportunity to test it for free during a 30-day trial period. Albisetti says that the free trial will start following the release of Ubuntu 10.04. Right now, Canonical is seeking help from the user community to test the service. He encourages users to provide feedback in the #ubuntuone IRC channel and on the Ubuntu One mailing list.

When we reviewed Ubuntu 9.10 last year, we noted that the lack of mobile synchronization was one of the most glaring deficiencies of the Ubuntu One service. Many users already get contact synchronization for free through Google and other providers, but the feature could still potentially help make an Ubuntu One paid plan seem compelling to some regular end users.