Google taking over Opera?!
Saturday, 17. December 2005, 04:14:24
Phew.. this one scared the hell out of me!
Rest assured people, according to Tor Odland (Opera's Communications Director) "these are just rumors. We have not been approached".
Apparently a blog posting by Pierre Chappaz (a former head of Yahoo's European operations) caused all the buzz. "According to a source who is usually well informed, Google is close to acquiring the Opera browser," he wrote in his blog in French.
Officials at Google were not available to comment on the rumors and a spokesman on Google's european PR agency also didn't have any comments to make.
From my point of view it makes sense for Google to be interested in a browser developer. We all know Google has been expanding in the software market making partnerships with OpenOffice and buying Keyhole (which is now Google Earth). Lets not forget that Google has already developed their own IM program (GoogleTalk) and there were rumors earlier this year that they were planning on developing their own browser too. They even hired ex-mozilla developers.
But.. there's another thing that doesn't make sense at all. We also know that Google has been supporting the Mozilla Foundation and the Firefox browser through their Adsense/Adwords program. How would the guys at Mozilla feel if Google was really ready to buy Opera and transform it in the Google Browser? Would Google drop support to the Foundation and stop the Firefox campaigns through Adsense/Adwords?
It's up to you to draw your own conclusions!
Read the full story at InfoWorld
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