Facebook Aims to Drive Down Tech Prices to Expand Its Reach

Facebook Aims to Drive Down Tech Prices to Expand Its Reach

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s co-founder and chief executive, is clear about his vision for his company: He wants to triple the size of his social network, which now has 1.6 billion members.

But to reach that new audience, he has to find a way to change telecommunications networks to make connecting to the Internet more affordable, since many of those would-be Facebook users live in developing countries.

That could be bad news for the companies that make equipment for those networks, whether they are Silicon Valley giants like Cisco Systems or little widget makers that produce the parts to tie different pieces of the network together.

“There is definitely going to be some pressure, some consolidation” for many tech equipment suppliers, said Akshay Sharma, research director at the technology advisory firm Gartner. “If you’re in hardware, you’re going to reduce head count from thousands to maybe 10 people, a hundred at most.”

Read more at The New York Times