From Wired, a very strange story about Facebook chief product officer Chris Cox’s latest move:
“I am mandating a switch of a whole bunch of my team over to Android, just because people, when left up to their own devices, will often prefer an iPhone,” Cox said yesterday during a briefing with an unusually large collection of reporters, many at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California, and many others watching via online video from locations in other parts of the world. No, Facebook has not developed some sort of vendetta against Apple. Nor is it compelled to suddenly endorse the products of arch-rival Google. This is a practical decision.
Though the iPhone may be the preferred device in Silicon Valley, Facebook now serves over 1.5 billion people across the globe, and a vast swath of these people—especially newer users in emerging markets—use the social network on Android phones. As Facebook seeks to reach ever more people around the world, Cox says, he wants a good portion of his team on the world’s most popular mobile platform “so that they can be reporting bugs and living in the same experience that most Facebook users experience today.” Make no mistake: his team isn’t small. He’s the company’s chief product officer.
Given the money savings and productivity increases IBM is enjoying by letting its employees switch to Apple products, you have to wonder how Cox’s demand is going going over with Facebook workers.
