That’s what Mike Arrington’s sources claim and it’s something that we’ve also been speculating about for months now. As I wrote only a few weeks ago, Facebook is becoming increasingly at risk of competing social platforms from Google and Apple, especially via the companies’ mobile platforms. However it looks like Facebook as effectively identified the risk and is preparing to combat it.

As I wrote only a few weeks ago, “If Facebook doesn’t announce their own full blown mobile operating system, the company will continue to exist at the mercy of the largest technology companies in the world: Apple, Google, and Microsoft.” Facebook also needs a mobile platform if they want their Credits platform to have substantial distribution.

Back in May, Facebook hired Erick Tseng, Google’s lead product manager of android, leading many to instantly speculate whether or not a Facebook mobile Platform was under way. If Techcrunch’s sources are correct, we could be looking at a Facebook Phone in the near future.

While I’m not quite sure how long it takes to develop a mobile Platform, one would speculate that Facebook would announce such a service at the next f8 event.