By giving more prominent display to its HTML5 mobile app platform, Facebook may give the platform a boost. In the process, it might also give the markup language itself a leg up. The effects will be felt by everyone who deals with the Internet, including IT professionals at small and midsize businesses (SMBs).

The mobile environment has developed, so far, in a very different way than its wired Internet counterpart. Instead of being open by default, it has been dominated by wireless carriers, Apple, and Google. If an alternative emerges that makes direct Internet access more viable for mobile devices, SMBs may find themselves on a more level playing field.

Bypassing Apple and Google

As reported by Josh Constine at TechCrunch, Facebook introduced its HTML5-based app platform last October. The intent was and is to allow Facebook to cash in on in-app ad sales. A browser built into its iOS and Android mobile apps lets the apps contact the Internet directly, avoiding the "tax" levied by Apple and Google on payments through iOS and Android apps.

But the platform has been buried at the bottom of the Facebook pull-out mobile menu. Few users were installing it, and therefore few developers were providing apps for it. The capability was at risk of dying on the vine.

Now, the platform is being shown some love. Facebook is testing a bookmark for the platform at the top of the app's news feed, often the first thing users see. Getting users' attention is the first step in building interest in the developer community. As Constine puts it, "[the company] may have found a way to leverage its natural assets to begin the steep uphill battle against Apple and Google's mobile platforms."

Why It Matters

This effort is of obvious importance to anyone developing mobile apps and considering whether to build HTML5 versions of those apps. If it catches on, mobile technology will be substantially freed of the shackles of vendor control. Unlike iOS and Android, HTML5 is not a mobile OS weded to a physical device. Like earlier versions of HTML, it is an Internet markup language, available for use on any Internet-capable device.

For SMBs and their IT departments, this is a welcome development. It has the potential to dramatically weaken the control that a handful of wireless carriers and large vendors have exercised over mobile communications.

In principle, mobile users can already access the Internet directly via a browser. But the process is clumsy within the confines of a smartphone screen--hence the rise of "apps." These are not going away, but a more accessible Internet will liberate SMBs from the heavy-handed domination of a few large firms.

This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines of a smarter planet.