Opera Software is to concentrate on the embedded browser market, expanding the range of devices and architectures its browser software will run on. The company hopes to take advantage of increased broadband penetration, and the growing number of Internet-connected devices being produced.
I am just wondering if this is the beginning of the end of opera browser for desktop.
The trend to concentrate on another field is there since Opera decides to give away their browser with no cost. The development of Opera for desktop is slower than when it was v. 6/7.
For example, there was a preview version of 8.02 with Bittorent support built-in, but now there is nowhere anymore. Perhaps in v. 9?
When the end is near, than it’s rather pity.
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http://www.bcm.fh-furtwangen.de IT Business Consulting BCM – Faculty of BIT – Furtwangen Univ. – Germany
This is exactly what I was going to comment. If they gave away their browser they don’t expect terrific earnings from it anymore (if any!). And when a product doesn’t generate profit, you drop it. Simple capitalist rules.
Opera for desktop does generate profit. As is described in http://www.opera.com/company/investors/finance/2005/3Q05.dml we are giving up half our traditional income (licences and ads) per copy of Opera. We will lose income short term but we expect to get that back and then some with higher market share longer term. In other words we will earn less per copy than we otherwise could but have more copies.
I see… Jonny, could you check out your link? I think it’s broken
They all seem to work fine for me.
As far as I can tell, web browsers are really middle ware. Users are always going to use what’s installed with the system they purchase (so IE on Windows, Firefox on Linux, Safari on Mac OS X, etc.) as long as it works.
Since Opera doesn’t get installed in anyone’s computer by default, why would they continue to try and sell it. Also, they are in a market where there are free alternatives. It’s hard to compete with free.
Concentrating on a market where they actually bring value to the table, and can make a profit to me makes perfect sense.
As a side note, if a company like yellowtab was selling enough copies to have something to offer Opera (a market), they would be a good match, since Opera seems to fit in so well with the BeOS in some ways..
The article is a little confusing. This has nothing to do with Opera for desktop or for mobile. Opera has three main product lines desktop, mobile, and devices (formerly home media). This is not about ending either Opera for desktop or for mobile, but that Opera for embedded devices (TVs, consumer electronics, industrial devices and the like) is coming of age. See http://www.opera.com/products/devices/ for more info.
Actually the development of Opera for desktop has accelerated considerably since Opera 6/7. Not only do we have more developers than ever, desktop has gotten more well-deserved attention (at the time of 6/7 we already had an established desktop product while the mobile products needed more development).
Jonny! Good to see you around here
Good to see that Opera for desktop has a bright future too!