In a move that will leave lots in the industry quaking in their boots, Facebook has made its first foray into app development with the buyout of cloud-based development platform Parse.
Parse enables app creators to work across iOS, Android, JavaScript, Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, and OS X. It already powers 60,000 apps – many for independent developers – and counts Armani, Deloitte and Cisco among its B2C and B2B client-base. Both companies have emphasised that Parse’s offer will not change, which includes some free access to its cross-platform marketing, data and social app development tools.
“Combining forces with a partner like Facebook makes a lot of sense,” said Ilya Sukhar, CEO of Parse. “In a short amount of time we’ve built up a core technology and a great community of developers. Bringing that to Facebook allows us to work with their incredible talent and resources to build the ideal platform for developers.” 
San Francisco-based Sukhar and his co-founder James Yu have well-decorated tech careers between them, previously working at Salesforce.com, Ooyala, Scribd and BuzzShout.
