Facebook is all set to foray into the burgeoning smartphone market. Last year, the social networking major partnered with HTC to work on smartphone, which has been codenamed as Buffy.
New York Time has reported that Facebook may come out with its own smartphone next year. Employees of Facebook and engineers briefed on Facebook's plans, say the company hopes to release its own smartphone by next year.The company has hired more than half a dozen former Apple software and hardware engineers who worked on iPhone, and one who worked on iPad, the employees and those briefed on the plans said.
This would be Facebook's third effort at building a smartphone. In 2010, the blog TechCrunch reported Facebook was working on a smartphone. The project crumbled after it realized the difficulties involved, said people who had worked on it.
In the past, Facebook worked with HTC over two smartphones known as ChaCha and Salsa. Both the smartphones came with a dedicated Facebook key and tighter integration. Now the social network giant wants to go beyond just the dedicated key and Facebook integration.
A Facebook employee told NY Times, "Mark is worried that if he doesn't create a mobile phone in near future then Facebook will simply become an app on the mobile platforms."
When asked, Facebook did not deny or confirm that a project to build smartphone existed, but pointed to a previous statement it gave to AllThingsD last year that said that the company is working across mobile industry - with operators, hardware manufacturers, OS providers, and application developers.
Recently, Facebook entered into a strategic partnership with Trend Micro to help educate and protect users' digital life against malicious sites and malware.
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