Canonical has announced consumer-oriented phone and email support for Ubuntu Desktop Edition. Ubuntu offered phone support before, however it was priced for enterprises managing large install bases. The new support plans are targeted at consumers and start at about $50 per year.

There are three tiers of this new support plan: starter, advanced, and professional. All three tiers offer support for installation and basic tasks, such as e-mail, web browsing, and OpenOffice. The advanced tier, which costs $115 per year ($65 more than starter) additionally offers support for Windows migration and a broader set of applications. Finally, the professional tier, which costs over $200 per year, adds support for topics such as virtualization and remote desktop.

These support offerings are most interesting for new Ubuntu users. The professional tier is probably unnecessary, however either starter or advanced support for a year (largely depending on how much migration suppor they need) would really get a new user going. Plus, compared to buying a copy of Windows, a year of support is still very cheap. Admittedly most people do not buy Windows alone, however you can usually save at least $50-$100 by getting a computer with Ubuntu rather than Windows.

This new support offering potentially offers a familiar bridge for new users. My only complaint is that the minimum support length is a year. many people may only need a few months of support, so a cheper and shorter option would be ideal.

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