Facebook now offering back-end services to developers

In April of 2013, Facebook purchased Parse, a service that allows developers to build mobile applications across all platforms.

The purchase was one of several big buys by Facebook related to mobile applications and development. The social networking giant doesn’t have its own mobile operating system, like Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android. With the Parse acquisition, the company now offers back-end services to developers for things like data storage and user management.

You're welcome, developers

“By making Parse a part of Facebook Platform, we want to enable developers to rapidly build apps that span mobile platforms and devices,” Facebook’s Douglas Purdy said in a blog post last year. “Parse makes this possible by allowing developers to work with native objects that provide backend services for data storage, notifications, user management, and more. This removes the need to manage servers and a complex infrastructure, so you can simply focus on building great user experiences.”

The pricing strategy

At Facebook’s F8 conference in late April of this year, Parse co-founder Ilya Sukhar announced that it has lowered prices for developers. The new price drop also coincides with increased analytics and offline data storage.

Parse is moving to a single pricing point for its services. Previously, there were three different pricing tiers for developers. Facebook and Parse are trying to entice more developers to work through them. The service offers developers all the necessary tools to build mobile apps without the need to manage their own servers and storage.

“After you’ve built your mobile app, the next step is to build, grow, and retain your user base,” the Parse team wrote on its blog. “Loyal users are key to an app’s long-term success, and with these new growth-centric insights, you’ll be able to keep track of your users better than ever before.”

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