Facebook, the social-networking site with more than 31 million users, has made its first acquisition, buying Parakey, a startup run by Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt, who were co-founders of the Web browser Mozilla Firefox.

The deal comes as the buzz about Facebook seems to grow louder every day. Will founder Mark Zuckerberg sell it? He reportedly turned down a $1 billion offer from Yahoo last year. Will he take it public? Then there is the pending litigation over the origins of Facebook.

So why does Parakey matter?  Parakey has developed, but not released, an operating system that synchronizes a user's data between desktop and the web.

As the New York Times' Bits blog reports such an online platform "could be a way for Facebook users to easily send all their desktop-born data - photos, videos, email - to their Facebook page, and to interface with the service even when they're offline." 

Very Google-like.  Or perhaps like Windows?

The TechCrunch blog in a post titled "Could Facebook Become the Next Microsoft?''  notes that Facebook is already becoming the "one-stop shop" for content and interaction. And that's just the start.

"Facebook's acquisition of Parakey says one thing loud and clear about Facebook's intent: Facebook wants to become the No. 1 destination on the Web,'' TechCrunch says.

That's Google's ambition as well. But Facebook has an advantage as a social networking site, TechCrunch says.  Its applications are intrinsically linked, while Google products like Gmail are standalone offerings.

The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but one can assume that Parakey is getting a significant stake in Facebook ahead of an eventual initial public offering.