Platform Wars Explain Apparent Facebook Phone Interest

The platform wars are driving application providers into what might be unusual territory. In order to compete with Facebook, Google attempts to build a social network. In order to compete with Google, Facebook attempts to build a phone. Lots of device or app firms have launched their own browsers.

And the "platform wars" are occurring on a number of fronts.

The fight over the TV is really a fight over the next massive consumer platform that is coming up for grabs. Of platforms there are few: Google owns search, Amazon owns digital retail, Facebook owns social, and Apple owns consumer devices. Microsoft owns, well, nothing at the moment, despite its handsome revenue stream from Windows and Office, argues James McQuivey of Forrester Research.

But Microsoft’s Xbox 360 is already the most-watched net-connected TV device in the United States and soon, the world. With more than 70 million consoles in households worldwide, as many as half of them connected to the Internet, depending on the country, Microsoft can rapidly drive new video services into tens of millions of households, McQuivey argues.

Significantly missing from those lists of platforms are cable or telco access service providers. At least for the moment, telcos and cable operators are not "platforms."


Rumors about Facebook creating its own smart phone are not new. Now there are rumors that Facebook is considering buying mobile browser Opera, a move that would strengthen Facebook's platform status without requiring an immediate move into the actual device business.

Separately, there are rumors Facebook is hiring engineers as part of a project to create its own smart phone.

You might ask why Facebook would want to enter competition with Google, Apple, Microsoft, Mozilla and Yahoo. The answer is that, right or wrong, such a move would be viewed as a way of allowing Facebook to grow its status as a platform, much as Google, Apple and Amazon have done.

Keep in mind that Facebook also has talked about becoming an ad network, able to sell inventory outside Facebook. A browser would help, in that regard.

Google itself makes far more money from advertising on the iPhone than it does on its own Android devices, some would note. That suggests the rationale for an ad-supported company to control its own devices and use its own operating systems.