Facebook Price for Having No Phone OS? $19 Billion. A Must-Have Apps Play? Priceless.

[Commentary] With Facebook’s $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp, we have now established a price floor for what it costs not to have a mobile operating system in a world in which having a mobile operating system counts for an awful lot these days.

And that means, for all intents and purposes, Google’s Android operating system and Apple’s iOS. And not, despite various and sundry efforts, Facebook, which also has tried to create a mutated shell version of its own OS called Home.

But a mobile presence is a must-do in the current digital environment, and this massive acquisition makes it clear that Facebook has decided that its core strategy will be to create or buy up must-have apps that consumers demand to have on their mobile devices. It’s a little like deciding to be Disney, said one source, owning all the good content brands. If Facebook is Disney (by the way, its COO, Sheryl Sandberg, is on the entertainment giant’s board), then Instagram is the Disney Channel (the kids love it!) and WhatsApp is ESPN (everyone loves it!).