subject: The Facebook Phone [print this page] So Facebook has been rumored to have been making a phone for the longest time. Well since the IPO release, Facebook has been in the headlines for reasons other than just dropping stock price. Facebook now has to prove to shareholders that the company can make money. Jumping into the smartphone market might just make that possible.
In the past week, Google completed its acquisition of the hardware maker Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, which could mean that Google is going to be making its own smartphone. Heck, it already has the Android Operating System and more phones than you can shake a stick at, but its very own Google phone? So far, the Galaxy Nexus is the closest thing to a pure Google phone that we have, but a phone that has a Google logo on it? It could be in the works. But dont think that Mark Zuckerberg is going to let this happen quietly.
Anyone thats been over at Facebook or knows someone that works there has gotten wind that Facebook hopes to release its own smartphone by next year. Most of the people speak on condition of anonymity because they dont want to burn any bridges with the social networking giant. To what extent they are in the process, we dont know.
The company has already hired a grip of former Apple engineers that worked on the iPhone, and one who worked on the iPad, according to the anonymous sources.
Whats interesting is that this is Facebooks third effort at building a smartphone. TechCrunch reported that they were working on one in 2010, and last year, myself and Seed Corns president were at an event for the HTC Facebook phone (code-named Buffy) that phone never got off the ground. Thats what worries those keeping a close eye on this. Hardware makers and Software makers are two different animals. Generally, outside of Apple, this kind of thing doesnt fly. Hewlett Packard and Dell both tried to make a phone and failed. Sonys phones have never been all that great.
For Facebook to pull this off, it needs to have a kick-ass phone that just does everything right, especially Facebook as a mobile app. And if it cant pull of the phone construction, it could just buy a phone maker. Research in Motion is valued at $6 Billion, and HTC which they were partnered with for Facebook phone 2.0 could be purchased for around $10 Billion. Facebook just received an influx of cash, around $16 Billion, from its IPO, so it could do something like that.
Whatever it does, the clock is ticking. Mark Zuckerberg definitely doesnt wanna exist solely as an app on other companys phones.
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