Opera Mobile

[snip] The global aspect of MobileMonday Global Peer Award was emphasized when Norwegian-made Opera-browser, nominated by MobileMonday Japan, won the business-to-business category on Monday in Helsinki event.

The actual winning application was Opera 8 Mobile Browser for BREW.

15-country jury selected the winners from 21 finalists. The representatives of 15 MobileMonday chapters gave voted the winners by giving 3 points to the best and one point to the second best application.

The Japanese nominee, Opera, gathered 30 points. The second best point total went to eXact Mobile by Giunti Labs with 17 points.

Opera was described as an application that offers mobile users speed and usability by design always in line with the latest development in the Opera desktop browser. Opera allows mobile user to navigate the full Internet.[/snip]

Full Text

So it is already 2006. I know it will take me two months before I manage to adjust to writing 2005 2006 on letters and forms. Ah well, I had a nice and relaxing time over the holidays, only interrupted by phone calls from journalists around the world curious to hear about Google acquiring Opera. Or was it Microsoft?

Our Times Square competition was received very well by everyone, and I am glad we finally got the two love birds on a plane today. You can follow the development in Dan's blog.

Lots of exciting stuff happening in 2006, folks! We have the worldwide launch of Opera Mini coming up really soon, and I am busy preparing for it. I am very excited about this as Mini has such a great potential. Really, think about it. We're bringing the full Web to some 700 million phones around the world! Almost everybody can start surfing on the phone they have today! Isn't that a mobile Web revolution?

Then there's the much awaited release of Opera for Pocket PC, which is so close now that I can smell it in the hallways here at the Opera HQs. That is a smooth-running, sexy piece of software if I ever saw one.

I would love to say more, but need to keep some secrets, too

We've really turned it up quite a few notches in home media, or what is now officially our Opera for Devices business unit. The consumer electronics market will be of increased importance to Opera in 2006, and we have already made a few announcements.

Let's make 2006 as good for each other as I think it will be for Opera!

We announced the Opera Platform SDK in connection with the W3C's MWI event in London on November 15. If you haven't checked it out yet, you should!

Opera Platform SDK is free to download and enables you to quickly create AJAX type applications for mobile phones. These "widgets" are small applications that are directly accessible from your phone, and can get you info on anything from the local weather forecast to your e-bay bidding status or when the next bus leaves - with one click. Opera Platform uses open standards Web technologies to develop advanced applications for mobile phones quickly and cheaply. Read more about it here.

We also have an Opera Platform competition going where you can a Nokia N70.

Opera's latest edition of its renowned Web browser for Symbian S60, Opera Mobile(TM) 8.5 is listed as "Application of the Week" by both Nokia and Symbian this week:

Opera 8 for Symbian S60 brings the convenience of desktop Web browsing to S60 devices. This new version allows mobile users to browse large-format Web sites and preserves the original site’s design and layout to a remarkable degree. Mobile users can now access their favorite Web sites without the frustration or tedious delays of traditional mobile browsers.

Nokia.com: Read full review
S60.com: Read full review

Opera Mobile(TM) 8.5 for Series 60 has been received very well by the industry, the media and end-users across the world since its launch on November 14

Just want to say a massive cheers to the whole Opera team for taking on board all the feedback, and making a browser that is simply great...

- (my.opera.com forum member)

Opera is the best mobile browser I have used, if you haven't tried it out already do so. It's great.

- Jon Gales, mobiletracker.com review, Nov 14 2005

Read more or download Opera Mobile(TM) 8.5 for Symbian S60 can be downloaded from here

The Opera browser is used by the major handset manufacturers in the world and is shipped on mobile phones from, among others, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Kyocera, Hitachi, Casio and Motorola. T-Mobile has opted for the Opera browser on several of the phones in their Web'n'Walk offering, demonstrating not only the quality of the Opera browser, but also that mobile Web access has now become a major selling point also in Europe and America, as it has been for a while in Japan. Opera has positioned itself for this development for years, and we are in a very good position now that mobile Web is starting to take off. We'll roll out Opera Mini globally soon, enabling full Internet access on most "normal" phones on the market, and that's just the beginning... Stay tuned and surf Opera!

Opera 8.5 for Symbian Series 60 is in the final stages of development and will be launched next week. See Bjarte's post in the forums for more information!

UPDATE:
Due to the launch of Opera Mini in Germany and a rush of other Opera releases this and next week, the release of Opera 8.5 is postponed to Monday, Nov 14. Sorry for the delay!

Also see Bjarte's post here