The truth is that it’s hard to know Facebook’s exact intentions at this point — too much seems in flux right now and Facebook is holding their cards pretty close to their chest after a series of leaks. Certainly, the HTML5 angle will be played up as “open” rather than being against either Apple or Google. But the larger reality remains: Facebook wants this HTML5 app platform to succeed so the mobile world is not fully controlled by those two companies. And they want their own Credits platform to dominate mobile. Facebook has to play nice and say the right things for now since they do not have their own phone — yet.
Speaking of that, there’s not much here, but we have heard that the work on Facebook phone project continues. One whisper has them working closely with Samsung. Another has them working with Pivotal Labs as well. Facebook will disavow all knowledge of this of course. But it takes nothing more than a quick rational thought to realize that for the future Facebook needs to be in control of two things to maintain power: a web browser and a mobile phone. The thought that they wouldn’t be working on both is what’s really crazy.
And none of this speaks to the other big projects Facebook has going on, like their music launch. Which will probably be at their next f8 which the last we heard will be at the end of August. And yes, it will involve a lot of partners.
This summer is shaping up to be a very exciting one for Facebook. It begins tomorrow.