Canonical, the company behind the Ubuntu platform, has signed the first deals that will see its operating system used on mobile phones – but stopped short of naming names.

According to CNET, Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical, said the platform will ship on “high end phones” in 2014, stating that the project has “shifted gears from ‘making a concept’ to ‘it’s going to ship’.”

And he also said that further discussions are ongoing: “We are now pretty much at the board level on four household brands. They sell a lot of phones all over the world, in emerging and fully emerged markets, to businesses and consumers.”

Plans to push Ubuntu into mobile phones were announced early in 2013, and since then it has had something of a mixed time.

A number of high-profile operators signed up for the Ubuntu Carrier Advisory Group, including China Unicom, Verizon Wireless, Deutsche Telekom, Telecom Italia and SK Telecom.

But a high-profile crowd-funding programme intended to deliver a device called Ubuntu Edge fell short.