Facebook unleashed on all fronts. After having continued its march towards one billion users in recent months, and expanded its range of action with the purchase of applications (such as the photo sharing startup, Instagram, acquired for the record sum of 1 billion dollars) and above all with the listing on the Stock Exchange 10 days ago, Mark Zuckerberg's company plans to develop its own smartphone by 2013. And it will do it in full Apple style, judging by the indiscretion of New York Times according to which Facebook “has already recruited half a dozen former Cupertino engineers who had worked at the time on the design of the iPhone and iPad”.
In fact, the real news is the "transhumance" from the bitten apple to the most used social network in the world, which had already expressed its intention on several occasions to launch its mobile phone on the market, only to later realize that it did not have the necessary technical background. Nothing better, therefore, than relying on old Apple brains. Unless there is the possibility of having an already defined product at home: if the "homemade" operation does not go through, the social networking giant would be ready to be tempted by the idea of an acquisition. Although so far it has been a flop, in fact, Facebook's listing on the Stock Exchange made it possible to raise important funds, for the beauty of about 16 billion dollars.
With such availability, no objective is precluded, least of all the purchase of a company in difficulty but with enormous potential: all the clues lead to the Canadian Rim, producer of the Blackberry, currently valued at around 6 billion dollars. Among other things, it is today's news that Research In Motion, which is increasingly suffering from the ruthless competition from Apple and Samsung, is close to cutting another 2 jobs. Its share of the smartphone market is now reduced to the bone: 6,7% in Canada (-50% compared to 2011), even only 5% in the United States, and even the tablet challenge is no better. In fact, the Playbook has sold just 1 million copies, in the presence of 3 million made in just one week by the latest iPad model. Last year alone, Rim posted a loss of $1,1 billion. An extremely interesting situation therefore for the "shark" Facebook, which could thus find the coveted smartphone already at home and, at a relatively reasonable price, the organization and expertise of a company among the first on the international technological scene.
