Opera Otaku

Today, Opera published a press release about our browser being used by Baobab. From the release:

Opera and Baobab Health Partnership today joined forces to provide innovative technology solutions to help combat HIV in developing countries. Baobab, using the Opera browser, has produced a healthcare system that allows health workers to administer high quality HIV treatment programs according to World Health Organization guidelines. The system is currently deployed in Malawi, a country in the midst of an HIV crisis.

That's the kind of news I love to hear. Some context: Just over six months ago, I was in an academic institution whose theme/motto was "Why not change the world?" Similarly, I was in a department that was action-oriented and more than just "academic". I'm not much of a social crusader, but I do consider it important that my work contributes to the betterment of society in one way or another.

After graduating with my PhD, I had a difficult decision to make: should I continue to work in academia and try make a difference by doing research to address real-world problems, or should I work for Opera and make a difference by helping a company whose vision is to bring the power and promise of the internet to everyone. I've always felt very much at home in academia, but the challenge of helping Opera was too compelling to pass up.

The future of the internet is being defined right now by various parties with various interests--some noble, and some not. Opera is not the only company whose vision I agree with, but I do think that Opera's take on the future is something that deserves far more attention.

People look at our desktop marketshare and wonder why we're still around, but they don't hear enough about the innovative things we're doing to drive the entire browser space forward, as well as all the other amazing stuff we're doing in the world of mobile phones and other devices. There's so much cool stuff going on at Opera that we have a hard time knowing where to start in terms of marketing.

People who follow the company have heard a million times that we support open standards, accessibility, and cross-platform functionality, but the real challenge is to communicate the value of our browser to everyday internet users who just want to do fun stuff on the Web.

Idealists like myself who hear the Opera story will be drawn to Opera with just a little more awareness of who we are and what we're about. The Open Source success stories of some of our competitors are great, but Opera (being closed source) has a compelling story of its own, continuing to make real a vision of the Open Web that includes everyone. We're a unique company in a unique position to do a lot of good.

Pragmatists who just want the internet to work for them the way they like it will be won over when they realize they don't have to be strapped to their desktop PCs to use the internet. It's a revolution that's already happening. Even without much marketing, Opera Mini is one of our most successful products. There are still some sites that don't work right with Opera, but we see that situation improving as developers are showing more interest in producing standards compliant websites that will work on mobile phones, the Nintendo Wii, etc.

Opera might not be saving the rainforests or doing anything like that directly, but we try to do good where we can, and that's by making the best browsers possible--making the Web available for all.