Social media giant Facebook shocked the developer world today with news that it will be shutting down its Parse development platform less than three years after it acquired the business for a reported $ 85 million. The social networking giant will continue to support the platform until January 28, 2017, at which point it will be fully retired.
The backend-as-a-service provider offered mobile app developers backend tools to help them develop apps, manage services, and store data in the cloud. When Parse was first acquired, it was reported to be running more than 100,000 apps, including some for major organizations like The Food Network and Ferrari.
An Unexpected Development
Those clients will now have to migrate their apps to different platforms. The company said it would be releasing a database migration tool to allow clients to migrate data from their Parse apps to any MongoDB database, a process the company said can be done without any downtime on the part of the app. Facebook also said it would be releasing the open source Parse Server, which allows clients to run most of the Parse API from their own Node.js servers.
Nevertheless, the move is likely to cause discomfit for at least a few of the thousands of mobile app developers who have come to rely on the platform. particularly given the unexpected nature of the decision.
Facebook seemed to have big plans for the cloud-based platform when it acquired the business in 2013. At the time, the deal was seen as part of the social network’s move to bulk up its mobile app business. That same year, Facebook also hosted its first mobile developer conference and launched several new products to help mobile designers, such as Open Graph, integrate into the social network.
“We don’t intend to change this,” said Douglas Purdy, Facebook’s director of product at the time, on the company’s developer blog. “We will continue offering their products and services, and we’re excited to expand what Facebook and Parse can provide together.”
Backing Away from Developer Services
Having Parse’s services in its stable helped give Facebook a foothold in the cloud services space, alongside players like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. But Parse’s CEO and co-founder, Ilya Sukhar, left Facebook in 2015, and the company has been quiet about the platform for a while.
The cloud services sector has expanded rapidly in the last several years, with established players doubling down on their investments and new players entering the market. All the additional competition may have soured Facebook on its original strategy.
Or perhaps the company’s success in areas like mobile advertising and video content led to the decision that developer services were no longer part of its core mission. Either way, Facebook is likely to have plenty of upset developers on its hands.
