14 DAY TRIAL // If you’re wondering whether WhatsApp will be yanked from the App Store following the costly Facebook acquisition, the answer is no. At least not yet, anyway. According to Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, the service will continue to operate as it always has.
In announcing the WhatsApp acquisition, Zuckerberg outlines that “WhatsApp will continue to operate independently within Facebook. The product roadmap will remain unchanged and the team is going to stay in Mountain View.”
Suffice to say this is enough confirmation that the WhatsApp Messenger we all know and love isn’t going to undergo any changes in the near future.
In fact, Zuckerberg cannot stress this enough and promises to make the service even better, as Facebook works to make its own Messenger client complementary to WhatsApp.
“WhatsApp will complement our existing chat and messaging services to provide new tools for our community,” he writes. “Facebook Messenger is widely used for chatting with your Facebook friends, and WhatsApp for communicating with all of your contacts and small groups of people.”
“Since WhatsApp and Messenger serve such different and important uses, we will continue investing in both and making them each great products for everyone,” the Facebook boss explains.
Zuckerberg also confirms that Jan Koum, the current CEO of WhatsApp, will be joining the social network’s board of directors.
Apparently, Koum has some ideas about improving Facebook. He’s not just there to oversee what happens to the service he co-created with Brian Acton in 2009.
“I've also known Jan for a long time, and I know that we both share the vision of making the world more open and connected. I'm particularly happy that Jan has agreed to join the Facebook board and partner with me to shape Facebook's future as well as WhatsApp's,” Zuckerberg concludes.