This is
the year of owning it all in the tech industry. After years of speculation,
major tech companies including Apple, Google, and Microsoft are finishing up
their ecosystems that tie your music, photos, videos and documents to digital
devices deeply integrated with online storage and sync. Not wanting to be left
out of the party, Facebook may soon be vying for a piece of that
end-to-end dream with a Facebook-branded smartphone. Mobile computing is
becoming increasingly important as users turn toward tablets and smartphones
for everyday computing. Facebook said that as of late April an average of 500
million people access the social network through mobile devices every month. With
so many mobile users, Facebook needs a strong mobile presence. Facebook is
worried that if it doesn’t make its own smartphone the social network will be
just another app forced to exist on third-party mobile platforms, according to The New York Times.
The
problem with depending on third-party mobile platforms such as Android, iOS, or
Windows Phone is you have to play by the rules set out by Google, Apple, and
Microsoft. Facebook can’t, for example, offer purchases using Facebook credits
on its iOS apps. To get around this issue Facebook was rumored to be working on
an HTML 5-based application platform for mobile devices codenamed Project Spartan,
and the social network’s newly announced App Center may
be the beginning of that plan. But owning your own smartphone solution, if you
can convince people to buy into it, is even better than relying on the Web. If
you own the hardware, you can shape the consumer experience the way you want it
to be -- and shut the other guys out.
So
Facebook may be getting down to work on a potential smartphone. We’ve already
seen some signs of this such as Facebook breaking down its mobile presence into
three apps: core social networking with Facebook, photo sharing with Facebook Camera, and messaging with Facebook
Messenger. And who knows? Perhaps the future will also see more apps such as
Facebook Contacts, Facebook Events, or Facebook Video. The company is also busy
hiring people with experience building smartphone hardware, according to the
Times. There are also rumors that Facebook is looking to purchase the Opera Web browser,
giving the company another important piece for a future smartphone. While
Facebook purportedly scrambles to make a device, other companies are almost
finished rolling out their solutions. Google embeds its numerous online
services into the Android mobile OS, and is making a play for PCs with Chrome
OS. Apple is using its new online sync and storage solution, iCloud, to
complete its end-to-end offering that includes mega popular mobile devices
including the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch.
Microsoft’s Windows 8 for
PCs and tablets, expected later in 2012, will include the Metro-style,
touch-friendly interface and feature Hotmail, SkyDrive and Bing baked right in.
The rumored Windows Phone 8, codenamed Apollo, is also expected to
feature deep integration with Windows 8. Then, there are the dark horse
candidates also hoping to convert users to their ecosystems such as Lenovo and
Acer. Lenovo wants to provide personal cloud storage and sync tied into
smartphones, tablets, PCs and televisions. Acer launched AcerCloud, an iCloud-style
sync service that shares music, photos, videos and documents between devices.
Both companies announced their plans during the Consumer Electronics Show in January,
but have yet to prove they are viable candidates.
With so many end-to-end platforms
out there already is there even room for a Facebook phone?
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