Ubuntu for smartphones looks beautiful, but it’s going to have a tough fight on its hands to gain a foothold on a mobile market that’s completely and utterly dominated by Android and Google. To be honest, at this point in time with absolutely zero market share, even catching the likes of Blackberry and Windows Phone would be seen as an achievement.

Canonical’s hopes probably seem like a pipe dream at the moment, but that doesn’t mean it’s not going to give it a real go. To realize its ambitions to one day become the ‘third’ mobile option, Canonical has just announced the creation of what it calls a “Carrier Advisory Group,” or CAG, to help guide and shape its vision of Ubuntu for mobile phones.

Ubuntu’s CAG consists of a number of leading carriers from around the world, including Everything Everywhere, Deutsche Telekom, Korea Telecom, Telecom Italia, LG UPlus, Portugal Telecom, and SK Telecom – though notably, there are no US carriers at present. The group will be independently chaired by David Wood, who previously served on the board of directors at both the Open Mobile Alliance and Symbian, and will discuss the following key aspects of Ubuntu for mobile’s development:

• Differentiation for OEMs and operators
• Developer ecosystems and application portability from Android and Blackberry
• HTML5 standards, performance and compatibility
• Marketplaces for apps, content and services
• Revenue share models for publishers, operators and OEMs
• Payment mechanisms and standards
• Platform fragmentation
• Consumer and enterprise market segments and positioning

Wood outlined the goals of the CAG in the following prepared statement:

“The mobile industry remains on the lookout for an independent platform that enables innovation and differentiation. Ubuntu brings a time-tested operating system and an attractive user experience, as well as a community of developers ready to apply enterprise-grade skills in the creation of applications. The Carrier Advisory Group will have ample opportunity to influence the Ubuntu roadmap, and take full advantage of the potential in this emerging platform”.

That Canonical has got a few carriers onboard is a step forward, but doubts remain if Ubuntu for mobile will be able to assume the third place crown it obviously wants. It’s not just Android and iOS that it needs to worry about after all – Blackberry and Windows Phone are both stepping up their own efforts, and then we have the Firefox OS which is set to launch later this year, most likely a good six months ahead of Ubuntu (Canonical says Ubuntu phones probably won’t hit retail until Q1 of 2014). Tizen, the operating system that’s backed by Samsung and Intel, is another potential threat, and its first phones are also set to be released later this year.

One of Canonical’s main hurdles is that it’s yet to announce any phone manufacturers that have agreed to build smartphones specifically for Ubuntu, unlike Firefox which currently has five manufacturers on board, including Sony, which is set to launch a Firefox phone in India later this year.

One of Ubuntu Phone’s biggest selling points will be its unique ability to dock with a keyboard and monitor to boot a full desktop version of the OS, but whether or not this will be enough to interest consumers remains to be seen. After all, the Motorola Atrix 4G had similar capabilities, but is widely regarded to have flopped.