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Opera Purchase Rumour Control
We've had several submissions this morning concerning a CoolTechZone article stating that Microsoft has purchased Opera, seemingly confirming the Dvorak article we reported on yesterday. However, roblimo has followed up with Opera and found that to be (so far), less than true. Opera PR person Berit Hanson told Slashdot by phone from Oslo, Norway, that "last week it was Google, this week it's Microsoft." She laughed and added, "If I was working for Microsoft I think I'd know it, but I'm still in Oslo, not Washington, still working for Opera." Which, of course, is not to say it won't happen ... it just hasn't happened yet.
opera is a horrible browser. why would microsoft want to purchase opera? oh wait..
I heard that Microsoft is gonna buy Google before the new year.
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
I wonder if government regulators would allow Microsoft to buy Opera at all. Wouldn't they see a problem with the company that controls 80%+ of a market buying out one of the few surviving competitors they have? There's Firefox, AOL... uh... Netscape doesn't count since it's a blend of Firefox and IE...
I mean, I don't know, I just can't see it being allowed.
Microsoft to buy Opera... maybe... not yet, but it could happen someday.
FASCINATING.
They say that no news is good news but I say that news site reporting no-news is bad news.
Having sumbitted one of those articles myself, I am very relieved that it is not true (yet).
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
People actually listen to that diseased gadfly?
To me the verbage he spews, is much like that of Darl McBride, diarrhea.
As progster on osnews speculated: "Microsoft wants it for the mobile market and they'll kill the pc version of opera."
Actually I heard that Opera was thinking of buying Microsoft.
Is for the Mozilla foundation buying Opera
The way the IE team has been killing themselves lately developing IE7, I'd be pretty surprised if MS turned around and bought Opera. It would also seem like an odd time to make the buy, given that IE7 ships next year.
I think I'll too have to call her about this rumour.
Opera is NOT a Qt app. The Unix version uses Qt for certain dialogs and such, but that's it. Windows and Mac Opera do not use Qt at all. They use a special GUI toolkit which they developed internally.
Slashdot. Counternews for nerds, Stuff that might matter one day... or not.
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
If MS needs a new browser, which they don't, it would be FAR more strategic to use Firefox, a la Netscape. Even though they would not own the browser, and they would be returning some features back to the public, they could use new Firefox features to drive sales of their server based products.
There is no money in browsers (just ask Opera), but lots to be made in selling server software.
Christ! What's next? No more dupes? No more early "FreeBSD x has been released"?
An early New Years Resolution?
I'm speechless.
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
"Which, of course, is not to say it won't happen ... it just hasn't happened yet."
If these are the standards for publishing articles, I'm waiting for more exciting articles then something containing a rumor involving the buying of Opera.
How about fixing IE so it is safe to be used on any OS?
Or is Opera somehow going to be better now that it is owned by Microsoft?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Isn't it obvious that this is just a result of someone confusing Dvorak's "they should buy Opera" into "they have bought Opera"? And it really is inconceivable that they would buy Opera. NFW.
If nothing else, Opera is getting noticed in a lot more places these days. I wonder how the downloads are going?
Why would Bill Gates want to buy Oprah... her shows suck.
-Sj53
Opera in buyout talks but not with google or microsoft.
Just a ploy to get a better price.
Stay tuned.
It very well could never happen. I have seen no evidence even suggesting that MS even wants Opera, other than a very speculative and not very well thought out article written by some troll. This is yellow journalism at its best, when someone comes out and refutes an entirely made up story, claim "it still could happen".
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
For linking to ANY article written by that idiot Dvorak. If Slashdot picks it up, his article gets steam and then other sites will make assumptions and false alerts based on shoddy reporting and opinions by the one and only, Dvorak.
God this really boggles the mind...
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
Slashdot editors do investigative reporting? That's unpossible.
Who is this roblimo, and what have you done with CmdrTaco?
I just read from www.icantbelieveitsnottrue.com that Microsoft has inked a deal with Al Gore to purchase the rights to the Internet.
{i blogged this and shamelessly copy-and-pasted it from http://fancy.se/ with lost links and formatting, but anyways}
There's a rumour that Microsoft has bought Opera software, makers of the (closed source) fast, cross-platform and lightweight Opera web browser, Opera mobile (Symbian S60, Windows mobile) and the recently released Opera mini (for Java phones).
It's not hard to understand why Microsoft would be interested. Opera is very standards compliant, more so than IE6 (and IE7 perhaps). Opera is obviously very well engineered, with a very fast renderer and extremely low memory footprint. Most importantly, Opera runs on platforms that Microsoft wants to reach out to and (in the end) dominate or conquer.
Such platforms are Symbian OS (in different series), a common OS for mobile phones. Opera rules that territory today.
Such platforms are Maemo (you've heard about Nokia 770, haven't you?), the exciting new open platform that Nokia puts work into, based on the Linux-kernel, X11 and GTK+, to name some open source technologies. Opera rules that territory today.
Such platforms are desktop Linux (Fedora Core, Debian, Ubuntu, SUSE, Mandriva, Slackware, RHEL, CentOS, the list goes on..) with KDE (QT) and/or Gnome (GTK+) integration. Linux users today mainly use Firefox or Konqueror, desktop Linux are getting more and more momentum and Microsoft understands that. Microsoft wants to reach that platform, for the same reasons that they want to reach Mac OS X (although most OS X users runs Safari or Firefox), and compared to porting IE to Linux from scratch (which could be a huge project depending on their codebase) lots of time could be saved by going with Opera (which has a Linux QT-version today). I expect Microsoft to port Windows Media Player to Linux soon too, for the same reasons that they have it for OS X, but that's a different story.
Such platforms are Mac OS X, since the old Internet Explorer for Mac will receive no more updates after new-year and will cease to exist as a download a month after that. Apple releasing Safari (the Konqueror technology KHTML-based browser) for OS X was Microsofts worst nightmare, they lost their dominance (yes, most OS X users ran IE before that) in an increadibly short time. At first it looked liked they wouldn't do anything about it and keep a kind of wait-and-see attitude (halting all serious work on IE for Mac). They need to hold on to OS X, either Microsoft ports IE7 to Mac OS X (which they could as they've done it before, but i suspect it's a whole lot of work) or they try a short-cut - Opera.
Such platforms are Windows mobile, their own platform for handhelds and phones. Many users seem to prefer Opera before IE for this platform, with Microsoft buying Opera their dominance would be total (neither Firefox nor a KHTML-based browser are available for this platform).
And actually, such platforms are Windows XP and Vista. Microsoft wants to grab users from Opera and Firefox.
If this rumour is true and Microsoft will buy Opera, I expect Microsoft to merge the "full" Opera web browser with Internet Explorer, and release it as IE8. This won't happen until summer 2007 at earliest, and likely even later (due to their track record). IE7 will release as planned (first half 2006 or something) and not contain a single line of Opera-code (it's in beta already). I expect IE8 to be more like IE7 with some Opera-technology merged in rather than the opposite. This could be a huge project and Microsoft could choose to skip most of it. They will look into Opera's renderer though, and they will look into the cross-platform nature of Opera.
The bottom line is, buying Opera is a cheap (relatively speaking, you've seen all the TV-commercials for Xbox 360 haven't you?) ticket into other competitors territory for Microsoft. Grabbing existing Symbian userbase would probably be worth it alone.
They might also just as well buy it and discontinue the whole thing, trying to help sales for Windows Mobile as a
From the grandparant:
Even though they would not own the browser...
They don't need to buy Firefox to use Gecko. It's MPL. They could just take it and use it.
It'd be better for everyone if they did too.
Something a co-worker found out here yesterday. You can do tabbed browsing with the VisualStudio Helpsystem ;)
In a press statement the Swedish Chef declared; Bork, bork, bork, borkbork Bork!
John Dvorak is like those crazy preachers that predict the end of the world every five years, and then every five years make adjustments to their original predicitons. He's the Charles Taze Russell or Ellen G. White of computing.
...if they did, who would they copy ideas from?
(Opera was the first major browser to have tabs, mouse gestures, etc.)
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
If I ate a mince pie for every end-of-year IT rumour on the net I'd have exploded by now.
The rather feverish interest in this stuff marks a real change. A year ago, it could have been announced that Microsoft had bought a B-52 and ten atomic bombs and everyone would have turned over and gone back to sleep. Now, the merest whiff of action on the Microsoft-Google-Yahoo front has the pundits running.
But I can't help wondering whether a little game of chicken is going on, with folks being bounced into buying something for fear the next guy will get it. Ebay and Skype, Google and AOL - these and others are not really matches made in heaven. It will be interesting to see how the dice have fallen on this craze in, say, a year's time. But I hope MS don't buy Opera, for a simple, selfish reason. I like using Opera, and I like it just the way it is.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
Please buy Opera now before Microsoft can get their hands on it and dump the linux/mac version!!! PLEASEEE!!!
Think of the all the linux/mac children!!
I don't seriously see MS looking the fool and admitting they can't write a decent browser by buying Opera. Google OTOH may have a use for their own browser expecially if thay are pushing for the whole "two tier internet" deal. I recall a story a while back where they were buying up the "dark fiber". Together maybe being able to have a browser that is standards compliant and able to handle custom protocols makes sense.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Hard work and self sacrifice begets more of the same.
Get the work done but don't kill yourself. If your boss wants to kill you, find another job. It might take a year or two, but it's better to do that than to work to death.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Most of the earlier 'weblogs' ( from the days before they were called 'weblogs' ), would always attribute where they heard the information. These days, everyone wants to be a newspaper, and pretend they're getting the scoop on things, and don't bother to list their source of information.
... mostly because they link to other sites, rather than rewriting it), or when it's an established news source who's gotten burned in the past from quoting websites, and they want to announce that something interesting might be happening, but they want to distance themselves from the source in case it's wrong.
I'd love to see more websites/newspapers/TV news/etc actually provide information on where they're getting the information, so that when things seem odd, it can be traced back to figure out who the dumbass was.
These days, the only time I see attribution is from those older 'weblog' type sites (slashdot, fark, obscurestore, robotwisdom
ps. I've never heard of this company 'Rumor Control' that Opera is supposedly buying.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
""If I was working for Microsoft I think I'd know it, but I'm still in Oslo, not Washington, still working for Opera.""
Which actually has a meaning of.... NOTHING.
It is not a confirmation, nor a denial - she has skipped around the question by making a joke. The reporter should ask her outright again to answer the question, or not quote at all.
The quote means nothing - she could be telling the truth, *and* know that Microsoft has taken over Opera *and* the quote would still be correct. (If MS took a majority stake in Opera, Operas employees wouldn't work for MS, they would work for Opera... *and* you can bet most jobs wouldn't be moving to Washington anyway).
I think it's because of this Digg "article": Microsoft Buys Out Opera that many people think it's true
... that domain is still free!
so they figure why not buy opera? it already has everything they are pushing for IE7
He makes a good living posting his bullshit because people are fuckking stupid enought to read it and publishers, fucking j*** that they are, whore him out.
In other words, US-American journalism.
Yours is an urttely incorrect, lame, unsubstantited and totally asinine comment. Why would it get modded up at Slashdot? Oh, wait...
I don't see why people would even consider this.
It is completely, totally out of question for Microsoft to buy Opera or any other browser. It is so fucking out of discussion that they're just as surprised as we are about these speculations.
Microsoft buying Opera would be terrible, we need more competition in the browser market, not less!
Also, I can just imagine them releasing Vista, and once everyone figures out that the blue-e has become a red-O, they then discover that half their favourite websites don't work any more (and in many cases, tell them to get lost because they're not running IE). Even if Microsoft gets ActiveX working with Opera, and lets assume that doing so is less time consuming than fixing the major problems with IE, there are still plenty of sites that work to bugs in IE (ranging from layout, to HTML parsing, to character set management on submission).
...until the fat lady sings!
...or related histera. It's either someone passing on a slightly 'enhanced' version of the story, or someone assuming it means they'll be bought or misnterpreting it. What do you expect?
Any grammatical or spelling errors above are for comic effect, and do not signify imperfection in the writer.
You may want to view this: http://my.opera.com/larskl/blog/show.dml/11628
Can't image what would be the EU response to a MS takeover of Opera. Oh, yes I can. The answer would be NO.....
Next /. story: Dvorak unable to find posterior with both hands, proclaims demise of buttocks as we know them.
Next /. retraction: Arse in previous Dvorak stories positively identified, proven to exist. (Which, of course, is not to say that the disappearance of arses won't happen ... just that it hasn't happened yet.)
A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.
What is "Rumour Control" and why would Opera want to buy it?
This is an incredibly big deal, not because of anything in the story itself, but because of those magic words "followed up by phone". Someone submitted what looked to the Slashdot editors like a really interesting story, but the credibility of which seemed a little flaky. They then *checked the story with a primary source* themselves. (OK, roblimo's working for OSDN rather than Slashdot, IIRC.) But this means that from now on when Slashdot runs a story that turns out to have been trivially falsifiable by a phone call or couple of emails, they can't use the excuse of "we just report what people submit". Fact chgecking... the thin end of a slippery wedge, if you ask me ;)
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
The press releases that Opera has issued on the Oslo Børs Stock Exchange state that Opera entered into an agreement December 1st with a "global player in home media systems" to adapt Opera to the "customer`s proprietary operating system." and in a more intriguing release today that three of the corporate officers have sold 20% of Opera Software stock into a holding company that they own. Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't that mean they maybe they aren't planning on being officers much longer? It may not be Microsoft but somebody is making an offer.
Come on. They've put how much time and money into developing IE7? No way they would do all that then scrap it for Opera. Not to say that Opera isn't better (I don't know). But it would be an incredible waste. If they were going to do such a thing, they would have bought Opera before they started developing IE7.
http://my.opera.com/berit/albums/showpic.dml?album =2954&picture=21296
I guess it figures though.
Berit, if you're reading these posts you should feel beautiful right now. Because you are.
Berit's boyfriend, if you're reading these posts I'm sure you feel totally creeped out knowing that 10,000 nerdy guys from all around the world are drooling over your girlfriend.
Haha! Lol!
that Slashdot's one millionth username will be I don't get it.
AND! the editors apparently *did* something too! they telephoned Norway just to confirm that this is a rumor! after years and years of no fact checking, grammar/spelling checking, etc., they *called* *norway* to tell us "here's today's rumor!"
</jerk> sorry... couldn't resist
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2003/06/30
I completely agree with your link. It is embarrassing that we are repeating this sort of shit, and giving hits to some ad-overloaded B.S. purveyor.
Did anyone notice who wrote the article? Varun Dubey...
Perhaps they could license some of Opera's technology (like rendoring or tab management) and itegrate them into IE (while not breaking IE's hooks into the OS).
Her photo album has a picture of Ryan Reynolds actor in such films as Blade Trinity, the remake of the Amytville Horror, Van Wilder, etc.
Huh? You must have replied to the wrong post. Your parent post is a joke intended to highlight the error to which you refer. The error was made in you grandparent post.
If not then, can i have some too?
No. It appears that you've had too much already. Take a cab home and sleep it off.
Since, for whatever reason, you're not too swift today, I'll explain the joke:
-If you know the Jetsons, they live in an apartment complex at the end of something akin to a space elevator.
- And The Jeffersons theme song went:
We're movin' on up,
To the East Side,
To a "deeee-luxe apartment in the sky-i-i-aye"...
Pretty funny, huh?
Microsoft and Google both have their own PR departments, and any purchase of Opera would be targeted at 1) the code, and 2) some of the developers. The rest of the employees would probably not know anything about it. At best, the owners of the company, a major shareholder or two, and possibly a few key people who need to be given an incentive to stick around after the acquisition will be informed. The rest may be kept on board as a gesture of good will or may be let go unceremoniously a few weeks later.
Amazing magic tricks
I have noticed that there is no icon for Opera, but there is for Mozilla, Firefox, even IE, etc. This seems a bit inconsistent.
Also, stories about Qt/TrollTech often are put under the KDE icon, which is also somewhat misleading...
Both Opera and TrollTech deserve their own icon on Slashdot. I often look just at the icon row at the top of the page to see what stories are of interest to me so the icons are very important.
Happy Holidays, Slashdot!
Or is there something I'm missing here? She works for Opera Software in Oslo, Norway. Sweden is the neighbouring country...
But I also heard that Microsoft purchased Opera through a contractor that works at Microsoft. They were gearing some development labs to work with Opera and I guess someone there just now got an email greenlighting the project.
Intelligent Design
I don't know if they had any to begin with (they certainly aren't what I would consider a primary source of information), but they certainly have none now. The article, which was very simply proved false by roblimo's phone call, should have been checked before THEY posted it. They have a tiny update at the bottom now that basically says 'This is all bullshit. Thanks for playing.' which does not excuse their posting of it as a fait accompli in the first place. Yet another bullshit rumour website to cross off my list of sites worth looking at.
Stasis is death. Embrace change.
Amazing. Slashdot actually has a phone? And they were able to dial it and talk to a person to verify an "article" here? Wow. Hell must be really cold right now.
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
. . . has claimed, I heard from an anonymoose source here in Canuckistan, that Oprah just bought Macindows. Believe it!
It's all history, man. -anon
Gee, I'm stunned. Flabbergasted, even...
A Series Of Tubes - The Remix
In Russia Opera buys Microsoft!
-- Daemon@Slashdot
This one ranks right up there with the rumor that Apple is going to start using Intel processors. Yeah, like that will ever happen...
Hmmm. You'd think they would be here. But they're not. Silence!
I bet the rumor is true.
Microsoft doesn't need to buy opera- firefox is open source, they can just use that (the non-official logo version) at no charge.
Dvorak has so many admirers yet he has so little to say...
The author of this slashdot article should not have added that line at the end. The way it follows on makes it seem as if it is the Opera guy saying it. And the author has no reason to believe that Opera ever will be sold. The way it's phrased makes it sound almost inevitable.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Ah, so that's how Opera has been around as a commercial browser for more than ten years!
That's why Opera's revenue is higher than ever, and why the company is growing rapidly!
That's why Opera has millions in cash in the bank!
Because there is no money in browsers! Just ask the Slashdot experts!
Seriously... How do people on Slashdot come up with these things?
Opera Software has, as I mentioned, been around for more than ten years, and they've never made more money than they do now! They've even doubled the size of the company in a short period of time to keep up with demand for their browser.
Now you will no doubt point out that there is competition, and you would be right. Even on mobile phones, where Opera currently reigns supreme, there is tougher competition on the horizon.
But this does not negate the fact that Opera is making money by developing a web browser! And just because there is competition doesn't mean that it will stop being a viable market. Opera has more experience than anyone else when it comes to browsers in general, and mobile browsers in particular.
Clever signature text goes here.
So there are new stock rules going into effect next year, but theres a loop hole which some primary insiders are now using to avoid getting taxed to hell and back for being stupid enough to form a company...
Clever signature text goes here.
i hope that the opera community is not provding valuable support anymore if ms or another deep pocketed commpany is to buy opera.
right now there is a small highly innovative, yet cash-poor company and there is a strong community feeling and support. this seems to be a fair synergy where both are benefitting.
when a deep pocketed company takes over the innovative company-community, those "community employees" and forum posters should "unionize" and demand remuneration from the company with deep pockets. after all, the company save lots of money for support work. plus, there would be a transfer of wealth from a cash rich company to an individual.
Firstly you are not a Microsoft rep, you have no right to talk for them. In some countries your post would be illegal, like Australia, I have no idea about America.
It is most likely IE's purpose is to make sure people still buy Windows. Imagine if the Internet was as big as it is now, but Windows didn't support it. They just lost out in the Internet market which is a HUGE one, anyone that wants Internet either would get another OS or would load a his own Internet support, the latter being unlikely by mums/dads/idiots.
Beleive it or not, when IE started out it didn't support ActiveX or VBscript. Which again makes it more likely it was to sell to the same market AOL was selling to.