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My predictions for Opera for 2006.

OK, everyone who blogs about Internet technologies has predictions for 2006 so here are mine. Bear in mind that these are my opinions, and do not represent any input from Opera.

No Brainers

Opera will release version 9 of its desktop browser with enhanced capabilities for the email client and RSS reader. These enhancements come not a moment too soon because of the deployment of vastly improved web based email and RSS services from Yahoo (1st qtr?) and Microsoft's Hotmail (3rd qtr?). Unless Google finally drags Gmail out of beta status, you can't count them as a contender in this market.

Opera's Mini brower will be a hit and will show up as the mobile wireless interface of choice in a remarkably diverse set of applications. Mobile gaming will be the early winner.

Desktop Developments

Opera will still be testing the waters for the U.S. market. It's decision to add marketing staff in the U.S. is noteable, but the lack of a senior executive on the ground to coordinate the work will be a limiting factor. The U.S. market is so huge that clearly the firm thinks more revenue will be realized in a shorter period in Europe and Asia where Opera already has a stronger presence on mobile devices rather than on desktops.

Opera will pursue placement as the browser of choice for a laptop manufacturer with an emphasis on wireless applications. The firm's experience with wireless applications makes its a technically competitive choice for a laptop brand that wants to expand its reach with U.S. mobile laptop users.

Serious Stuff

Microsoft's expected release of Windows VISTA will be delayed, but the folks from Redmond will release Internet Explorer version 7 by the middle of 2006. With Mozilla's Firefox now claiming 10% market share, the competitive pressures in the deaktop browser market will become more intense. Opera's decision to concentrate on technological differentiation in mobile markets will continue to pay off because of Microsoft's weak hand in this area. By 2008 Microsoft will likely do some catching up.

Opera will deny new rumors that it is a takeover target. Readers should keep in mind that Internet analysts at major market reserarch outfits are incentivized to get their comments into the computer trade press as part of their firm's branding strategy. It often doesn't matter if they are right, just that they are quoted by name.

Fun Stuff

Opera's CEO will come up with more whacky stunts like swimming to Iceland as a way to get attention in the trade and general new media. His pursuit of a profile of the CEO as a media celebrity is similar to Scott McNealy's efforts at Sun Microsystems.

For product placement ideas Opera could sponsor the building of a motorcycle on American Chopper. After all a motorcycle represents all the elements of the product - it is mobile, promotes independence, has speed, power, and agility. What more could you ask? I can see CEO Jon von Tetzchner riding the finished bike with the Opera logo shimmering in the sunlight on red and silver chrome colored trim. If Opera can light up New York's Times Square with a giant video, can it ride down the Las Vegas strip on a knock out motorcycle?

Opera's mobile mini software for cell phones got a boost last week as the company prepared it for global release. Until now only cell phone users in Nordic countries could use the product. According to Opera's own public assessment, the mobile mini browser is the crown jewel of the firm's software offerings.

It could be said, improbably, that the marketing folks in Oslo can get overheated even at the end of December in Oslo, but in this case they might be right, at least in in Europe and Asia where a lot more Internet access is through cell phones. Opera will thrive in these markets. In the U.S., with its reliance on desktops, use of cell phones for Internet will depend more on whether content providers will tailor their offerings to mobile devices and make the pricing attractive. Finally, the quality of the handset is going to make a huge difference. The dispay, ergonomics, ability to store data, and integration of functions will all play a role in whether U.S. uses adopt mobile devices for Internet applications beyond text messaging, which represents about one-third of all cell phone use for applications other than voice.

According to M.Metrics, a Seattle market research firm, fewer than four (4%) percent of all cell phone users access work related email via cell phones. This places mobile device email users in an elite, narrow category of early adopters. Interestingly, a growth area is that mobile gamers are more likely in the near future to sign up for paid services via cell phone than knowledge workers. Opera's success will depend on breaking out into the mainstream of these markets.

Opera Lifts Curtain on Mini Browser
December 20, 2005

By Matt Hines, eWeek

Browser maker Opera Software released a final preview of its latest mobile application, dubbed Mini, which promises to deliver improved Web viewing to wireless handsets.

The Norwegian company said Tuesday that it silently lifted a regional restriction it had placed on an advance version of the browser software, which had previously limited downloads to users in Nordic countries and Germany, ahead of Mini's expected January launch.

The application claims to deliver a more desktop-like Web experience to any handset capable of running Java-based mobile applications, which includes many popular phones already in the hands of consumers.

Opera spokesman Eskil Sivertsen said the restrictions were removed to help the company test its browser's capacity to prepare for the global launch.

[snip]

Offered free of charge, Mini was designed as a simplified version of the firm's other wireless offering, Opera Mobile Browser, which is designed to run on so-called smart phones, or more sophisticated wireless devices that offer the memory to store and run such applications.

Claiming the ability to run on most Java-capable handsets, Opera Mini promises to deliver the same performance of the Mobile Browser technology to a much wider range of devices.

Company officials maintain that the browser could run on hundreds of millions of existing phones that use WAP (Wireless Access Protocol) to access the Web, giving it a huge potential audience worldwide versus the smaller numbers of customers in the relatively new smart phone sector.

[snip]

Opera claims that despite Mini's smaller footprint, which uses a Java client application downloaded onto the phone to communicate with the company's servers, the browser offers almost the same experience as its device-hosted software.

The slimmed-down browser application leans on the servers to transform and compress Web content for smaller screens, eliminating much of the need for local memory.

[snip]

Some experts have debated whether users will ever embrace mobile browsers such as Opera's, which mimic the same style of interface as Microsoft's Internet Explorer and other popular desktop Web surfing tools.

With limited real estate on the displays of most handsets, systems which use voice input to locate and call up different types of content or Web pages may be more appealing to subscribers someday.

Contrary to the rabid rumor mill, fed by CBS Marketwatch Columnnist John Dvorak, Opera was not bought out this month by Microsoft, Google, or anyone else. However, the firm did ink a search revenue deal with Google, which is a continuation of an existing business relationship.

It was strange and almost humorous to read the breathless prose of some Internet analysts about Opera's pending sale to one computer giant or another. Opera's CEO denied repeatedly that the firm was for sale to anyone who would listen. Both buyout rumor episodes seemed like a bad Halloween "Treat or Treat" joke gone wrong. Anyway, Opera continues to chart its own destiny, and that seems like a good way to start the new year.

Opera Software chooses Google for Search Revenue Deal

By Reuters
Story last modified Thu Dec 29 19:53:00 PST 2005

Norwegian Opera Software has agreed that Google will be the default partner for its mobile Internet browsers, Opera said on Thursday. "Google will be the default search partner for the mobile browsers: Opera Mobile and Opera Mini," Opera said in a statement. "Under the one-year contract, Opera will make Google Search a major part of the browsers home screen." Oslo-based Opera Software is a tiny competitor of Microsoft in the Internet browser market, but the fast-growing part of its business is in browsers for mobile phones and other mobile electronic devices.

Opera dismisses Google takeover talk as rumor
Rumors stem from blog posting by former Yahoo exec

By James Niccolai, IDG News Service
December 16, 2005


Opera Software has not been approached by Google about a possible acquisition, an Opera spokesman said Friday, dismissing rumors that Google is eyeing a takeover of the Norwegian browser company.

"These are just rumors. We have not been approached," said Tor Odland, communications director for the Norwegian company Opera.

The rumors appear to have stemmed from a blog posting Tuesday by Pierre Chappaz, a former head of Yahoo's European operations. "According to a source who is usually well informed, Google is close to acquiring the Opera browser," he wrote in his blog in French.

Lighting up Times Square:

The folks at Opera are headed for America.

We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the midnight sun
where the hot springs blow.
The hammer of the gods,
Will drive our ships to new lands,

On we sweep,
With thrashing oar.
Our only goal will be the western shore.

See the video here

Opera fans honored on ABC's SuperSign this New Year's Eve

Opera Software today announced that one lucky Opera user will have his or her face on the gigantic ABC SuperSign in New York's Times Square on New Year's Eve. In honor of its dedicated fanbase, Opera has chosen this high profiled venue to celebrate its community of users. Nearly one million party-goers will witness Opera's supersized fan tribute on the 585 square foot (54 square meter) screen.

All Opera users have the opportunity to be spotlighted, with one lucky user chosen. They simply have to send their photograph to Opera, along with the reason why they think they deserve to be featured on the big screen.

"Opera owes everything to the millions of devoted Opera users around the world, and we want to finish our 10th year with a big splash to thank them," says Jon S. von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software. "I hope 2005 will be remembered, not as the year of my overly optimistic attempt to swim to the USA, but as the year the Opera browser went free and the Opera community grew larger and stronger than ever before."

Opera will fly (or bike) the lucky Opera user with a guest to New York City for the New Year's celebrations, where they will be staying at one of New York's premiere hotels and receive two tickets to ABC's New Year's Eve party.

Starting on December 26 and climaxing on New Year's Eve, the video tribute will be on rotation at least nine times a day on the gigantic 585 square foot (54 square meters) ABC SuperSign in the heart of Times Square.

To sign up or follow the development leading up to the 26th, please visit the Opera Community web pages

Information about the Times Square New Year's Eve party here

PC World reported this week that the product development cycle for Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 has slipped but by how long is difficult to say.

Microsoft has been bombarding the computer trade press with news about the expected features of the new product, but the campaign has all the ear marks of vaporware. The vaporware tactic is designed to get end-users, especially large enterprises, to hold off making decisions to adopt technology from competitors in favor of a not yet shipped future application. The vaporware tactic is carried out by flooding the marketplace with news about the expected new product in ways that case a doubtful light on current products. It is a form of competition using smoke and mirrors. It is also called "ghosting."

The PC World story cites a posting on IEBlog, the Microsoft blog for its IE team, which says the company will post "an updated prerelease build of IE 7 for Windows XP publicly during the first calendar quarter of 2006." The posting was written by Dean Hachamovitch, product line manager for IE at Microsoft.

Microsoft attributes its decision to delay the rollout to "user requests" for an additional review cycle. Really?

The battle of the browsers ultimately is the battle for which browser is the de facto Web-client platform that runs enterprise applications.

Here's another point of view.

December 04, 2005

Opinion: Microsoft Shows Its IBMness

By Scot Finnie
Techweb.com

[snip]

According to published reports, Mozilla's target for calendar year 2005 is for Firefox to surpass only 10% market share. I mention this to point out the sheer immensity of the advantage Microsoft has in browser share, because even if Firefox surpasses 10%, Internet Explorer would still likely be well over 80%.

In this David and Goliath story, the important battle isn't for the hearts and minds of end users; it's the battle for which browser is the de facto Web-client platform that runs enterprise applications. In other words, it's IT managers and CIOs who control the likelihood of whether Mozilla and other alternative browsers have a chance to succeed in the marketplace.

Enterprise applications designed to run clients as ActiveX or Microsoft JVM-specific apps in Internet Explorer could be re-written by enterprise app providers (whether inhouse or from third-party providers). IT organizations need to make this a priority, not just because it's the right thing to do but because it's the best thing for them over the long haul. There should be no one-horse software categories, even for clients like the lowly Web browser--no, especially not for such lowest-common-denominator categories.

By the same token, software makers need to work harder at this. ActiveX causes serious security problems for Microsoft, but it also cements the browser category for the software giant. Last June, Mozilla, Apple, Sun, Opera, Adobe, and Macromedia announced a partnership to update the open, scriptable plug-in model originally developed by Netscape, called NPAPI (Netscape Plugin Application Program Interface).

Finally someone has come along with an intelligent comment on why browser success is not dependent on market share. This is the punchline.

Browser developers can't be concerned about gaining or losing a market share point here and there. They need to focus on the innovation that will keep them in the game. With persistence, their user population will continue to grow.

And here are a couple of snips from the rest of the story . . .

Browser Success Can't Be Measured in Market Share
By John Pallatto, eWeek
December 2, 2005

Opinion: The Mozilla Foundation and other browser developers should focus more on innovation and usability rather than fixate on whether they can seize more market share from Internet Explorer.

The latest release of the Firefox browser has once again raised the question of what the Mozilla Foundation or any other browser developer can do to seize significantly more market share from Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

The answer is that there is little or nothing can be done to threaten Explorer's dominant position. In fact, the entire issue is really beside the point.

Instead, Internet users should just take heart that there is still a vibrant market where open-source developers can continue to upgrade and even release new products that give Internet users diverse browser choices.

[snip]

Changing the entrenched technology choices of computer users is historically difficult. With each wave of new technology—whether it was operating systems, word processors, spreadsheets, databases or browsers—once users had made their choices, the convenience and familiarity of the established products made it very difficult to induce people to make a switch.

Only Microsoft has had the technological and marketing clout to get people to switch repeatedly from once-dominant products. If there is any question about this, just talk to the people that used to market Netscape Navigator, Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect and other products that I could name.

It's hard to imagine any of the open-source browser contenders changing this situation, at least not by themselves. The only chance they might have, and it is a very slim chance, is if an alternative browser was offered as part of a comprehensive suite of office productivity applications. Yes, such a suite, StarOffice, already exists, but it isn't exactly taking the world by storm.

The only way open-source browsers or an associated office suite will gain much additional market share is by waging a long-term, tireless guerilla marketing campaign. Open Source has to be the water that wears down the rock.