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The question people keep asking: 'What does this change about whether or not developers will use Parse?'. Before being acquired by Facebook, there was a non-tr

The question people keep asking: 'What does this change about whether or not developers will use Parse?'. Before being acquired by Facebook, there was a non-trivial probability that Parse would not be around for the long run. Being backed by a large company that isn't going away anytime soon makes Parse a viable option for larger businesses that are more risk averse than smaller startups/developer shops. Early adopters are great for shaping a product, but the majority of the money is in those risk averse enterprises. In other words, being acquired by Facebook hops Parse to the other side of the chasm [1]. There was a similar effect with Heroku being acquired by Salesforce. I'm not sure what the long term effects of being associated with Facebook's brand are going to be, but there generally is a lot of short term vitriol associated with anything Facebook does that eventually ends up being inconsequential; if I were Parse, I wouldn't be too concerned, especially when their actual numbers indicate developers haven't lost faith in them. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Chasm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Chasm

benatkin 13y ago
I don't care how long the company will be around. I care how long the product will be around. I don't think the acquiring company being around increases the likelihood of the product being around.
- jvrossb 13y ago
  It's case by case and there is no general rule. My hunch is that in this case it makes decision makers at big companies feel like they'll be around for longer.
callmeed 13y ago
Being backed by a company (a) not known as a player in the mobile PaaS space (ie higher likelyhood they will shut it down) and (b) known to care little about user privacy may have also made the chasm 3x wider.
objclxt 13y ago
> Being backed by a large company that isn't going away anytime soon makes Parse a viable option for larger businesses ...except that's not the case at all. Look at face.com - once they were acquired by Facebook they all but shut down their API several months later. I'm not suggesting this will happen with Parse - but it's naive to think that being acquired by someone means existing customers are even more secure than they were before.

benatkin 13y ago

I don't care how long the company will be around. I care how long the product will be around. I don't think the acquiring company being around increases the likelihood of the product being around.

jvrossb 13y ago
It's case by case and there is no general rule. My hunch is that in this case it makes decision makers at big companies feel like they'll be around for longer.

callmeed 13y ago

Being backed by a company (a) not known as a player in the mobile PaaS space (ie higher likelyhood they will shut it down) and (b) known to care little about user privacy may have also made the chasm 3x wider.

objclxt 13y ago

> Being backed by a large company that isn't going away anytime soon makes Parse a viable option for larger businesses ...except that's not the case at all. Look at face.com - once they were acquired by Facebook they all but shut down their API several months later. I'm not suggesting this will happen with Parse - but it's naive to think that being acquired by someone means existing customers are even more secure than they were before.