2010 has been a great year
for Opera Software. Earlier in
the year, we saw Opera Mini
for iPhone dominating the
App Store charts soon after
its release. Opera also
expanded to the Android
platform and launched
Opera Mini followed by
Opera Mobile in the Market.
On the desktop front, Opera
kicked off the year with the
launch of Opera 10.5 and
finished it off with Opera 11.
Opera Software was formally
founded in 1995 by Jon
Stephenson von Tetzchner
and Geir Ivarsøy. After nearly
15 years at the helm,
Tetzchner stepped down as
the CEO of the company
earlier this year. Recently,
Tetzchner was in India to
meet with the fans. During
his visit, he was kind enough
to answer my questions in
an email interview.
Me: While I am absolutely
thrilled with extensions for
Opera 11, I have to ask:
What took Opera so long?
Did Chrome’s success
influence Opera’s decision to
implement extensions in
anyway?
JVT: When it comes to
extensions we believe as a
company that it is important
to ensure that the browser
that you get out of the box is
rich and has a lot of
functionality. With focus on
web based extensions we
feel that there is a closer
match with our focus on
standards, and we felt the
time was right to launch
extensions with Opera 11.
We have also focused on
features such as widgets
and unite – which allow
developers to develop on the
outside of the browser,
which we have found to be
important for sustainability
of the web as we know it.
Me: Are you using any
extension? If yes, what is
your favorite extension?
JVT: Personally I am not
using a lot of extensions, I
have tried a number of them
but for the most part I feel
my needs are covered with
all the other functionalities
that Opera has to offer.
It has to be said that
extensions are about the
long tail that people need.
Me: In spite of being
(arguably) the most
innovative browser, Opera
has had little success in
expanding its desktop
marketshare. Currently about
fifty million people browse
using Opera on their
computer and this number
has remained stagnant for a
while. In fact, the Q3 2010
report suggests that Opera
lost some users during this
year. Why do you think that
Opera is struggling to get a
significant number of new
users?
JVT: Opera during the last
few years has had a
significant growth in
number of users. We now
have over 150 million users
worldwide across our
desktop and mobile
browsers. The growth in
past one year is very
promising and we hope to
continue this trend by
coming-up with innovative
features and products.
Me: If you were asked to use
any browser other than
Opera for 24 hours, which
browser would you pick and
why?
JVT: There can only be one
browser for me i.e. the
Opera browser
Me: Do you subscribe to the
notion that in the future the
browser will make operating
systems irrelevant?
JVT: I would not say
irrelevant – the operating
system continues to be
important.
I always ask a question
during my talks “how many
native applications are you
using on your PC?”. The fact
that typically 5% or less are
using 5 applications or more
indicates that already the
browser is the most
important tool on your
computer and most of the
time is spent in the browser.
We are seeing that the
browser has become the
most important aspect of the
computing experience.
Me: Earlier in the year, the
browser ballot screen went
live in Europe. After nine
months, have you noticed
appreciable changes in the
browser usage patterns in
Europe?
JVT: Clearly what we have
seen is a continuous fall in
the number of Internet
Explorer users and users
have increased for
competing browsers
including Opera.
Me: One of the things Opera
complained about is
Microsoft’s reluctance to
support web standards.
What is your impression of
Internet Explorer 9? Do you
think Microsoft has made
amends?
JVT: We are seeing Microsoft
working hard on improving
their standards support and
we applaud that. They are
still trailing the competition
but are moving in the right
direction.
Me: In 2004, Opera
extracted a settlement out of
Microsoft for deliberately
crippling MSN on Opera.
Unfortunately, the practice
persists till date with the big
three (Google, Microsoft and
Yahoo) often using browser
sniffing to offer an inferior
version of their products to
Opera users. Why do you
think this is the case?
JVT: First thing on the
settlement – there was no
settlement. Microsoft fixed
their site. This is where we
had the Bork edition of
Opera and we got them to
fix their site.
I think browser sniffing is a
bad thing in general. But we
are also seeing that more of
the sites are focusing on
web standards and that will
continue.
Me: Your vision of “One
Web” has won. WAP is dead,
and mobile web usage is
exploding. What’s next for
mobile web?
JVT: Exploding some more.
I think in many ways there
are so many people who do
not have Internet access
today. There are two billion
people with internet access
and there are one and half
billion phones. The trend
that we will see is that
mobile users will most likely
outnumber PC users in a
year’s time. This will have a
significant impact on the
web as we know it and a
very positive one.
Going ahead, please look out
for Televisions, Set top
boxes, cars and other
devices getting online as
well.
Me: The Register claimed
that “Opera holds the web’s
most valuable secret” thanks
to its massive data cache
(due to the combination of
Opera Mini and Opera
Turbo). Is Opera looking at
ways to monetize this
information?
JVT: We value our customer’s
privacy extremely. So
overstepping any kind of
boundaries there is out of
question.
We are clearly looking at
ways where we can help
enable relevant
advertisement on the mobile
through our purchase of
AdMarvel. We announced the
Open Mobile Ad Exchange
and as part of that we can
target people. But we don’t
want to target anywhere not
close to comfort. Typically
the kind of targeting will be
based on device type and
location on a very broad
scale.
Me: What is the Opera
“Bream” UI mentioned
during Capital Markets Day?
JVT: If you look at the
different Opera versions on
different phones you will see
a lot of similarities. It’s
because the user interface is
written in the Bream
language, allowing us very
quickly to deploy Opera on
new platforms.
This allows us to spend
more time on making a
great user experience and
less time on actually develop
specifically for one platform.
Me: Opera also has some
interesting offerings for
connected TVs. How is it
different from the new
Google TV? How has the
reception been from the
device manufacturers?
JVT: The response has been
great. We have been signing
up a lot of device
manufacturers including
brand names such a Philips,
Toshiba, Lowe, etc. We are
also working closely with the
operators and are seeing
significant increase in
deployments. We believe that
in the next few years
internet technologies on
television will become a big
hit.
Me: Earlier in the year, you
stepped down as the CEO of
Opera. What prompted the
change? As a co-founder
what are your current
responsibilities within the
company?
JVT: I have run Opera for 15
years. I think it is important
that for a great company you
have to be able to handle
change. Personally I wanted
to focus more on the tasks
that I like and slightly less on
the tasks that I like less. So I
decided that I wanted to
have Lars, whom I trust, to
take over the role as CEO.
Me: Soon after Lars Boilesen
stepped in, Opera India was
practically shut down, and
the entire engineering
department was axed. Even
more surprisingly, the entire
thing happened in a
secretive manner without a
public announcement. What
went wrong?
JVT: The decision to close an
office that and let people go
is always a tough one.
At the same time, it is
difficult to maintain and
control a faraway office as it
requires quite a lot of
resources. The assessment
from the team was that they
wanted to reduce the
complexity of operations
that arrive from having
multiple offices and they
moved the work to
development centers closer
to Oslo.
Obviously it was not an easy
decision to make.
Me: Were any other Opera
Software offices downsized/
closed?
JVT: The company is
continuing to grow. For the
India office, rationale was
about moving this operation
to Poland to reduce the
complexity.
When it comes to others the
rationale was that we are
doing more standardized
products and less custom
work.
Me: What is your perception
of India with respect to its
engineering talent pool?
JVT: India certainly is a great
resource of engineering
talent. We have a number of
Indians working in our
global offices handling
important portfolios.
Me: Opera Software is more
than 15 years old. Looking
back, is there anything that
you wish you/Opera
Software had done
differently?
JVT: There are always
choices. But I think it is
important to not dwell on
hindsight but still try to use
the learning’s from the past
while moving forward. And
that’s what we’ve tried to do.
All the choices we made that
in hindsight we wished we
had done differently – try to
rather use that as a positive
impulse for moving forward.
Me: What does the coming
year hold for Opera?
JVT: The goal for Opera has
to be to continue the great
growth that we have been
seeing all around during the
last couple of years. We have
tripled our overall user base
– combining desktop, mini
and mobile. In the beginning
of 2009 we were 50 mn
users and now we are 150
mn active users. So it is a
significant growth, a growth
that I believe is important to
continue to have and even
increase. To do this we need
to focus on the end users,
providing them with better
user experience.
Focusing on improving the
product for end users on
different devices in different
markets.
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