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Opera CEO says Linux is a big part of the company's future
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Comments<SLASH HREF="http://www.opera.com/" ID="937b6124c12996bdbff5b72431b9b279" TITLE="" TYPE="LINK">Opera Software</SLASH> CEO Jon S. von Tetzchner says the ratio of Windows to Linux Opera downloads is eight to one. This either means Linux is on 12.5% of computer desktops (unlikely) or that Linux users are far more likely than Windows users to download Opera.
Note that in absolute numbers Windows is still more important than Linux from Opera's viewpoint. This may change over time, especially now that Opera is releasing its Windows and Linux versions at the same time instead of allowing Linux releases to lag.
"What we've done in Opera 7 is make the code a lot more cross-platform," von Tetzchner says. "That's why the releases are in synch. Now we hope to add other platforms as well -- FreeBSD, Solaris, and the Mac over time."
Von Tetzchner has not noticed any resistance from Linux users to the concept of paying for software. He says, "I think there's not a significant difference in the number of Linux and Windows users who pay. People want choice, and most people are willing to pay for good software. Most of the current Linux users are programmers, and they can appreciate when good programming is being done."
He adds, "I also believe that if Linux is going to be a significant success on the desktop you need applications," and points out that he means both commercial and free software, not just one or the other.
Beyond the browser
Opera and IBM have been working jointly on voice recognition and synthesis. Soon, von Tetzchner believes, we'll be able to fill out Web forms and order goods online with voice technology. But he sees far more than commercial possibilities here. Indeed, the original reason Opera started working with voice recognition was to help people with disabilities get better access to the Internet, not to make money.
"Our focus on people with handicaps is a personal thing of mine that we built into the company. My father is a psychiatrist with a focus on children with handicaps," says von Tetzchner.
Opera and IBM have some of their voice tools available for free download here: http://www.opera.com/products/verticals/multimodal/
Follow the money
Opera Software has swung into profitability several times since the company was founded in 1994. Its current new product push is keeping it from being profitable at the moment but, von Tetzchner says, "We hope to strive for the black this year. We have definitely been increasing our revenues. Overall, last year we doubled our sales."
In descending order, Opera has seen its largest recent revenue growth in the embedded, desktop, mobile, and IT vertical markets. The embedded and mobile markets are the newest on Opera's agenda, and may hold the most future promise, since Opera can now provide decent HTML rendering on small screens, which most browsers can't.
"We can make [a Web page] fit in a meaningful way on a small screen without horizontal scrolling," says von Tetzchner. "People really like it. You don't need WAP or anything like that. It's all client-side, so people doing [Web] content don't need to do extra work."
More Linux in Opera's future?
"What we've been seeing, especially in the embedded space, is a lot of movement in Linux," von Tetzchner says. "We see it from IBM, Motorola, Lineo... We have a strong belief in Linux. Also on the desktop. We hope it takes off there, too."
But, he warns, "At least in Europe, so far we see more Linux desktop talk than action."
In other words, much though von Tetzchner and his coworkers may like and support Linux, don't expect Opera to stop developing Windows products any time in the near future.
Comments
on Opera CEO says Linux is a big part of the company's futureNote: Comments are owned by the poster. We are not responsible for their content.
I'd like to see more people offering non-free software for Linux, putting to rest some of the FUD that Microsoft spreads.
But I definately wouldn't change Mozilla for Opera, even if I was paid to use it.
I'm using Phoenix for the moment, though, but I am aware that it doesn't perform anywhere near as well as Opera 7. But I have no commitment to any one browser technology and will switch to what I think is the best.
- "DNS resolution issues" - what is this? Never heard about it.
- "the open source browser will only drive Opera further into the small-screen niche market" - considering the fact that Opera is leading the way with features like mouse gestures, SSR, spatial navigation, voice browsing etc., it actually seems that some open-source browsers have some catching up to do.
There are new features like "Fast-forward" which I hope other browsers copy, because its something that browsers have needed for ages. Then there are features that Opera has had for ages, but most browsers have not bothered to copy: MDI (which is better than tabs), full zooming, save open pages on exit, etc.
There is really nothing to complain about with Opera 7. And it is much much much faster than any fully-functional browser out there. I honestly never thought that pages could load that quick, and always thought it was the web sites themselves that were slowing things down. For example, try Slashdot (logged in) with Phoenix or Mozilla and then with Opera 7. You'll be amazed to find out that Slashdot's servers are actually not that slow.
I've seen specific complaints on user-friendly ...
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on May 02, 2003 02:49 AM--<nobr> <wbr></nobr>.not everyone using Opera 7 encounters this problem, and I can't say myself because I'm still using 6.05.
- "Rapidly increasing footprint" - Opera 7 is actually smaller than Opera 6.
Well, perhaps they were comparing it to Opera 1 or something. But emotive words such as "sluggish" and "bloated" were used.
- "DNS resolution issues" - what is this? Never heard about it.
Various complaints about looking up names locking the browser. Sounded a bit like old Netscape issues to me.
- "the open source browser will only drive Opera further into the small-screen niche market" - considering the fact that Opera is leading the way with features like mouse gestures, SSR, spatial navigation, voice browsing etc., it actually seems that some open-source browsers have some catching up to do.
Well, it may be true that the various navigation features in Mozilla (and derivatives) and Konqueror take much inspiration from Opera, but I didn't say anything about technical merit. One could however state that a number of Opera releases have been ripped apart by various parties on the subject of Web standards compliance.
Anyway, aside from technical merit, Internet Explorer proved that many users just take what they get, and guess what most Linux users get with their distros. Moreover, given that Apple derived their upcoming browser from open source browser technologies rather than licensing technology from a commercial browser vendor such as Opera Software, things seem to suggest that despite supposed technical advantages, the open source browsers will drive Opera into niches where its benefits aren't quite as disputed.
And by benefits, I'm not talking about a features p*ssing match - I'm talking about the whole picture of technology and the way companies do business.
In my personal experience, version 7 of Opera is the first one that properly support most of XHTML and CSS2 and also doesn't get the DOM model for JavaScript all tangled up.
Between the various free browsers and IE, at least I never found a good reason to pay for a browser with broken support for proper markup. Now that Opera finally does seem to support it for the most part, that may finally change.
// NeXTer
Opera is cool. Though I use Mozilla. I hope by 2005-6 there will be 20% Opera 20 % Mozilla 20 % IE etc.. So there will be a lot of choiche.
I'm intessted in voice req. on GNU/Linux.
The only thing in time thats better is GPL software
Paying for software is ok. I do it by choice, or donate money to the FSF.
> As long as that company doesn't want to own the internet
Why should anyone trust a company that says/implies such a thing?
If the companies software is GPL'd then I could trust them since any "control" measures would be quickly removed by the community that uses the product. If the code is not Free, you have to take their word for it, and since they aren't big enough to own the internet, it's very safe for them to say so).
> I use Mozilla. I hope by 2005-6 there will be 20% Opera 20 % Mozilla 20 % IE etc..
I too use Mozilla (through Galeon), I hope by 2006 users won't have to put up with proprietary software.
> The only thing in time thats better is GPL software
we definitely agree here<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:)
If it's not Free Software, I aint using it.
Ciaran O'Riordan
12.5% is wrong, probably more like 20% desktops
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on May 01, 2003 05:48 AMRe:12.5% is wrong, probably more like 20% desktops
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on May 01, 2003 11:47 AMIt's a Windows world, after all . . .
Since Microsoft has over 95% of the desktop market. Now it means Linux could rise to 20% of use in that company - that means a lot if it becomes a global market share figure in the future - at least Microsoft won't be happy about losing market share.
it on CD? A couple of years ago I purchased a CD and it only had
the WINDOZE version! I wasn't asked about my OS, so I thought both would be on the CD (since after all, opera doesn't hog even half the space on a CD)
Nothing compares to Mozilla :)
Posted by: Panagiotis Galatis on April 30, 2003 06:40 PM#