Facebook hires iphone engineers to develop mobile phones or launch next year

May 28 News, according to foreign http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/31646.html "> Media reports, Facebook hopes to launch its own smartphone next year, according to Facebook employees and Facebook-recruited engineers and people familiar with the plan. Those who disclose information are reluctant to disclose their identities because they fear losing their jobs or losing their relationship with Facebook.








These people said that Facebook had hired more than 6 former Apple software and hardware engineers who had developed an iphone and an engineer to develop an ipad.








, a person familiar with the matter, said it was Facebook's third attempt to make smartphones. In 2010, technology blogger TechCrunch reported that Facebook was developing smartphones. Facebook canceled the project because it recognized the difficulties of the project, according to people involved in the project. The AllThingsD website reported last year that Facebook and HTC signed a partnership agreement to make smartphones. The smartphone code is "Buffy" and is still being developed.








now Facebook has gone deeper into the process of developing smartphones, expanding its team of "Buffy" smartphones and exploring other smartphone projects, forming a team of hardware engineers who have previously developed smart phones.







When
asked Facebook about the development of smartphones in Friday, Facebook did not deny or confirm the existence of a smartphone development program. However, Facebook said in a statement last year to the AllThingsD website: "We are working with the entire mobile industry, operators, hardware vendors, operating system providers and application developers." ”








for Facebook, the motivation is obvious. As a new public company, it must find new sources of revenue. Facebook is worried about being left behind in the Mobile world. The mobile sector is one of the most promising growth areas.








Facebook CEO Zuckerberg is worried that Facebook will only be an application on other mobile platforms if he can't make a smartphone in the near future, says one of its employees.







If Facebook's own team of engineers failed to develop a smartphone, Facebook could buy a smartphone maker,
insiders said. Facebook got 16 billion dollars in cash from the IPO. Facebook can easily acquire companies like Rim and install its own beautiful Facebook operating system in rim handsets. RIM's market capitalisation is less than 6 billion dollars. HTC's market capitalisation is about 11.8 billion dollars and will become cheaper.

(Responsible editor: Lu Guang)