Facebook at Work announced Telenor, the Norwegian carrier, will join its list of collaborators. As Telenor joins the companies which will use Facebook at Work, the new product will enrich its market with 36K of employees. To this date, Telenor is the largest company to be announced to work with Facebook at Work.

Telenor and Facebook are joining their power

 Telenor’s CEO, Sigve Brekke, said their company was among the first to trial Facebook at Work, in the attempt to change internal communications. Brekke also said they picked Facebook at Work in front of other internal communication apps due to its familiarity: all the employees already know how to use it, both on mobile and on desktop. For the social media giant, this is a valuable opportunity: the company had been trying to expand its mobile reach lately and Telenor might be just the partner they were waiting for. Telenor owns carriers in many Asian developing countries and had been an early collaborator of Facebook on several projects.

Telenor is a powerful ally for Facebook, which is working on developing a strong sales department. The carrier already has one, along with a customer base and the know how, which is highly beneficial for Facebook, who would be able to expand their business on the sales field.

Asia is the most promising market for Facebook at Work

 Most companies which rushed to try Facebook at Work are located in Asia, where the social media giant is already very popular, especially among mobile users. Moreover, Facebook at Work’s rival, Slack has a low presence in Asia. Facebook at Work aims to reach both the desk workers and mobile workers.

However, there are couple of concerns with Asian market: Facebook had had some issues regarding its content and was banned by the government for inappropriate content. Telenor, on the other hand, was asked in the past to block the access to social media.

Facebook at Work will have to comply with the same rules and regulations, so if Telenor will be asked to shut down the app, they will most certainly comply. The bright side of this is these cases were rare and carriers always have a backup option when it comes to internal communication – Telenor is no exception. If Facebook at Work will be banned, they will definitely turn to a second solution.

 New features for Facebook, on and off work

 Until now Facebook at Work was offered free for businesses, but this will soon change after the beta release, which is scheduled later in 2016. Applying charges for Facebook at Work will allow the company to add more services and features to the product.

It’s not clear how the product will be charged, but most likely, users will be charged for integration with apps. Facebook is already discussing with Quip, Dropbox and Box, so we might see multiple integration options for Facebook at Work really soon.