Another day, another acquisition by the unstoppable-force known as Facebook. This time it happens to be Octazen Solutions, a Malaysian company which provides scripts to import a user's contacts into a website upon sign up.
Why would Facebook acquire the makers of an address book importer? It appears to be a talent buy, with Facebook employing the team and shutting down their service (aka acq-hire-sition). Liz Gannes quotes Facebook's Larry Yu explaining:
This is part of our ongoing effort to add experienced, accomplished technical talent to help drive the company forward in its efforts to be the central way for people to connect and share information.
A statement on the Octazen site reads:
The Octazen team wanted to let you, our valued customers, know that the company recently received an offer to acquire most of the company's assets and to employ those assets in a different direction. After carefully evaluating this offer, our team believes this is a wonderful opportunity of which we must take advantage.
As a result, effective immediately, Octazen will no longer accept new service contracts or renew existing service contracts, and will enter a transition period to wind down operations.
This is part of our ongoing effort to add experienced, accomplished technical talent to help drive the company forward in its efforts to be the central way for people to connect and share information.
A statement on the Octazen site reads:
The Octazen team wanted to let you, our valued customers, know that the company recently received an offer to acquire most of the company's assets and to employ those assets in a different direction. After carefully evaluating this offer, our team believes this is a wonderful opportunity of which we must take advantage.
As a result, effective immediately, Octazen will no longer accept new service contracts or renew existing service contracts, and will enter a transition period to wind down operations.
It's good to know that Facebook is keen on hiring more talents to join the Facebook-family to help improve the service. The downside is that by hiring these people, the site's features have largely been merged into Facebook, to the disappointment of loyal FriendFeed users. Before you know it, the Facebook empire will truly be complete...
[Mashable]
