In the past couple of years there had been rumours that Facebook would be making their own smartphone, but it turned out they build one through HTC, called the HTC First. The device was not successful at all, and not beneficial to either partner. Now it seems that they might want to try another foray into the mobile world, this time in a completely different manner. According to the Wall Street Journal, Facebook met with BlackBerry for talks over a possible bid.
Never mind that what’s left of BlackBerry’s user base is largely comprised of Enterprise-based users who value the platform’s added layer of security ““ not exactly the kind of people who would embrace the idea of a BlackBerry built around easy wall updates and photo sharing. While it may not make sense to most people, on the surface, there’s some logic to the idea of a Facebook-BlackBerry tie-up. Facebook certainly has pockets deep enough to afford an asking price of over $4 billion.
Not only that, but Facebook‘s future is certainly tied to the mobile world in more than one way. As more people use mobile devices to use Facebook, the majority of their ad revenues will come from mobile. Currently, it already brings in 41% of its revenue.
It could be extremely risky, though. All in all, there are very few companies that are making profits from their mobile device exploits at the moment. Buying one that has been haemorrhaging money for a long time and continually losing users is one thing, but doing it with a company that has almost no experience in the sector could be costly.
