Mark Shuttleworth has announced he is changing focus at Canonical and Jane Silber, COO, will take over as CEO. As Shuttleworth explains in his personal blog, from March 2010, he intends to focus his “Canonical energy” on product design, partnerships and customers. He considers these the areas which he enjoys the most and where he feels he can “best shape the impact we have on open source and the technology market”.

In the official announcement, Shuttleworth says he also feels that this will lead to a clearer separation between the roles of leading the Ubuntu community and being the CEO of Canonical by having two different people occupy these roles.

Silber, who is currently Chief Operating Officer and Director of Online Services at Canonical, joined the company in 2004, coming from a software development background to be involved in establishing and managing many parts of Canonical’s operations. The Ubuntu One project is currently lead by Silber and she says the company intends to begin a search for people to fill Silber’s current roles. Shuttleworth says the company considered hiring a new CEO from outside, but decided Silber had the background, experience and skills for the role.