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Facebook Has a Bullseye on Its Back

Google and Apple will try to kill it, Microsoft to buy it

By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

Posted Apr 26, 2010 11:50 AM CDT

(Newser) – Mark Cuban has some good news and some bad news for Facebook. Good news: It's the “new internet,” our go-to place for at-work entertainment. “Everything that the net was 5 or more years ago, Facebook is today,” the entrepreneur and Dallas Mavericks' owner writes on his blog, and it'll soon take over every other site with its latest platform innovations. Now the bad news: Anything that big looks like a threat to Apple and Google.

That means Facebook desperately needs to create its own mobile OS, or Apple could easily ban it the way it banned Flash. But Facebook doesn't have the cash to develop something like that. “Enter Microsoft. Already a shareholder. Already with a mobile and desktop operating system,” and, more important, enough cash to pay as much as $20 billion for Facebook. “It's straight out of the Microsoft playbook. If you can't beat them or outlast them, buy them.”

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, left, sits with Nathan Myhrvold, former Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft, at the annual Allen & Co.'s media summit in Sun Valley, Idaho, July 9, 2009. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)

In this photo illustration the Social networking site Facebook is displayed on a laptop screen on March 25, 2009 in London, England. (Getty Images)

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Facebook Has a Bullseye on Its Back

Google and Apple will try to kill it, Microsoft to buy it

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More Newser Stories

Paul Allen Re-Sues Apple, Google, Facebook

Microsoft co-founder refiles suit after judge's dismissal

Google's Brin: Free Internet in Serious Danger

Sergey Brin sees threat from governments, Hollywood, Facebook

US Cuts Off Funding to UNESCO Over Palestine

Political workaround unlikely to go anywhere

Google Looking to Buy Yahoo

Google wants more users for Google+, more advertising markets

Vanity Fair Unveils 'New Establishment' List

Mark Zuckerberg tops it, along with other tech execs

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