Facebook Invests in Mobile App Development With Parse Acquisition

With plenty of revenue from all those desktop web games, how will Facebook translate that as users access social media and games increasingly from their mobile? The acquisition of Parse whose mobile app development SDK for iOS and Android and other platforms powers thousands of apps seems to be one answer. 

Everyone's Going Mobile

Facebook is focusing more on mobile development as its user base flocks in that direction. The company held a Mobile Developer Conference recently to highlight the trend, and show its commitment to mobile with new products, like Home for Android, and tools to help developers integrate Open Graph and other Facebook features.

Now it is stepping up those tools by acquiring Parse which will become a part of the Facebook Platform. This should help developers speed up development, using Parse's back-end services for data storage, notifications, user management, freeing them up for the development side. Parse's cross-platform Xamarin SDK powers some 60,000 apps on iOS and Android. 

The two companies have shared information before as part of the Facebook Technology Partners Program and this seems like a natural fit, although Parse insist that users won't have to add Facebook integration, change their apps or go through any extra hoops with their existing or new apps. 

App's the Way To Do It

From games to big media apps like Forbes and The New York Times, Parse stores your app data in the cloud to do away with the need for servers, it users Push and social linking to help get information and your message out there. The apps can also be developed on specific SDK's to run on any device or desktop. 

Parse can be tried out for free once you sign-up and if Facebook keep their promised light touch, should remain a dynamic service to help developers get their apps up and running. If Facebook can benefit from social links that help it along, then all the better, and if the SDK grows to add an option for montezation through Facebook, then don't be surprised. 

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com