Facebook boosts mobile with Osmeta acquisition
Taking on more than a dozen new engineers -- some with Android know-how -- the social network deepens its mobile focus.
For Facebook, all signs point to mobile. Hot on the heels of the social network launching its new Android skin, Facebook Home, the company confirmed to CNET that it has acquired mobile software startup Osmeta.
While Facebook is declining to comment further on the acquisition, TechCrunch reports that the buyout happened sometime in the month before last week's launch of Facebook Home.
Not a lot is known about Osmeta because it hadn't yet launched a commercial product, but its Web site says that it was "working on really, really interesting software technology."
Before the acquisition, the company was headed by CEO Amit Singh who managed the startup's 17-person engineering team in Silicon Valley.
"We have the most formidable programming talent density imaginable under a startup's roof, or any other roof for that matter," Osmeta's Web site says. "Our 17-person engineering team consists of world-renowned hackers and highly accomplished researchers capable of herculean software engineering. The breadth and depth of computer science knowledge contained within the brains of our team is remarkable. Most of us have had illustrious careers at places such as Google, IBM Research, Yahoo Research, and VMware."
Apparently, in the past, Osmeta engineers had worked on Android, Chrome for Android, Chrome OS, along with a whole host of other software. It's possible that Facebook's interest in Osmeta had more to do with the startup's talent than an actual product that it was working on.