FaceBook’s First Acquisition: Parakey
Photo above: Firefox and Parakey co-founder Blake Ross
Their first acquisition: Facebook has bought Parakey, the yet-to-launch “web operating system” created by Firefox co-founders Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt. The price isn’t being disclosed, but Facebook should be issuing a press release soon.
Back in Feb 2005, Doug Leone is the Sequoia partner who has spearheaded the investment in the two-person company which is yet to decide its name. Ross, has been one of the most talked about youngsters in Silicon Valley. The 19-year-old Stanford University student interned at Netscape at age 14, and was one of the many software whizkids who turned Netscape’s bloated and kludgy software into Mozilla’s Firefox. Ross is not revealing the ultimate plans for the company or the focus of its products at that moment (now we know it’s a web os). The funding information comes from highly placed Silicon Valley sources, but was never confirmed officially.
Parakey will be an extremely important asset to Facebook as they are trying to become a web os itself with a social networking twist. With their F8 program launched in May 2007, 1000’s of apps has already appeared on the Facebook platform.
Could Facebook kill Microsoft by having thousands of apps developed on its platform (vs the PC os “windows” in the 1990’s) Time will tell.
All we know is our 2020 CLASSIFIEDS customers will benefit greatly as more users/consumers flock to the facebook site.