By Making its way on the phone market, Facebook has finally made a decision regarding the manufacturer of its social networking phone. HTC will make the smartphone around the social network and it has the name of Buffy. The Facebook phone will have a changed version of the Android mobile operating system, allowing its services to be integrated and supporting HTML5.
Facebook has been working on this project for the last two years, but it only decided on the manufacturer of its phone recently. This means that it had other candidates to consider and that the Facebook phone will probably be launched on the market after 12 to 18 months. The current leader of the Facebook phone project is Bret Taylor, Facebook CTO.
According to AllThingsD, a Facebook spokesperson said that “Our mobile strategy is simple: We think every mobile device is better if it is deeply social. We’re working across the entire mobile industry; with operators, hardware manufacturers, OS providers, and application developers to bring powerful social experiences to more people around the world.”
In order to evolve in the phone business, Facebook needs this product so that it can go past the supporting role it currently has in this business. This step could really consolidate the company’s position on this market. Facebook is currently used 350 million phone owners and it collaborates with 475 mobile operators from all around the world. The Facebook phone is the obvious next step for the social network.
Buffy will make a big change on the smartphone market because it will allow Facebook to get next to the top two companies that have been ruling until now, Google and Apple. Google has been working on its Google+ social network, while managing to become a direct competitor and Apple has Twitter as a social partner as well as strict control over its mobile apps.
HTC has been one of the mobile manufacturers that have designed phones with a special button for Facebook. In this note, it has launched the Salsa and the ChaCha phones this year. The company did not comment on the Buffy project yet.
Source : Allthingsd
