Na semana passada surgiu o rumor de que o Facebook, preparava em segredo um telemóvel (dispositivo e sistema operativo).
O porta-voz do Facebook, Jaime Schopflin imediatamente desmentiu…

Esta semana, em entrevista a Michael Arrington do blog Techcrunch  o fundador e CEO do Facebook – Mark Zuckerberg – esclarece qual a sua estratégia para a área mobile.
Zuckerberg explicou que está a preparar um layer  de integração do Facebook  (em HTML5 – compatível com vários sistemas operativos), com prioridade para os sistemas operativos móveis: iOS (iPhone e iPad) e Android. Estará atento à evolução do “revolucionário” Windows Phone 7 e talvez para o Blackberry.

Sobre a Nokia e o Symbian, nenhuma referência…

Sobre, hardware e a possibilidade de participar na definição de um equipamento (hardware) e relação de proximidade com a INQ, refere que:

The INQ phone, I don’t think we had any engineers work on it

O “penso” com algumas “dúvidas” nas entrelinhas, não existem. Zuckerberg, disse tudo nesta resposta!!!
Temos um “gato escondido com rabo de fora” 🙂

Ontem, o canal económico Bloomberg revelou que:

Facebook Inc. is working with mobile-handset manufacturer INQ Mobile Ltd. on two smartphones that may be carried byAT&T Inc., according to three people familiar with the matter.

The devices, which will feature Facebook social-networking services, are due to be introduced in Europe in the first half of 2011 and the U.S. in the second half, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans haven’t been made public. AT&T, the second-largest U.S. wireless service provider, is still considering whether to carry the devices and hasn’t made a deal, another of the people said.
Fonte: Bloomberg

A notícia do Bloomberg, explica o porquê da proximidade do Facebook com a INQ Mobile:

While Facebook declined to comment on plans for specific phones, the company said it continues to work with INQ Mobile, which has previously sold phones with Facebook features, along with other companies. London-based INQ, backed by Hong Kong telecommunications carrier Hutchison Whampoa Ltd., declined to comment. Li Ka-Shing, the billionaire who serves as chairman of Hutchison Whampoa, also has invested in Facebook.

Fonte: Bloomberg

Quando questionado por Michael Arrington sobre o desenvolvimento de um sistema operativo:

An Operating System? No.
(…)
I mean, who knows, 10 years down the road, maybe we’ll build our own operating system or something, but who knows. That is more history than we’ve had so far with the company, so it is really hard to predict that far out. But for now, I think, everything is going to be shades of integration, rather than starting from the ground up and building a whole system.

Fonte: Techcrunch

Ficamos a aguardar o novo player no animado mercado mobile 🙂