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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 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.
Microsoft never sold a browser.
Not entirely true. It was included in Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95, which, really, aside from some horrible themes and font smoothing, was the only real reason to spend the ~US$50 on the stupid thing.
My blog
Berit wasn't the first Opera person I called, just the first one who answered. And I didn't check her picture first. I just wanted an official source inside Opera to tell me "on the record" whether or not the company had been sold.
When she picked up the phone, I said, "This is Robin Miller in the U.S. -- Roblimo on Slashdot -- and I want to know how you like working for Microsoft."
She said, "Huh? As far as I know I'm still working for Opera."
After the laughter stopped, she gave me the "official word" you saw above. Hot or not, Berit is a competent corporate spokesperson, and that's what counts here.
- Robin
As far as MS is concerned, IE is not about web browsing. The web browser view of IE is just the sugar coating to get regular consumers to use it. IE's primary purpose is to be a client interface to applications written in ActiveX, VBscript, etc. That's why it is so popular in businesses, even those who use custom Windows desktop builds and/or software distribution and could easily put Firefox on every PC in their organization.
If it was about which web browser is the best, Firefox would easily dominate the market, especially in corporations where security is important. But MS has locked people into IE by convincing them to use their proprietary platform for web applications. If Opera (or any other browser) could access all of those applications (by default - I know there are plugins and such for this) then they might be able to replace IE, since like I said the web browsing portion is secondary to MS. But they've put a lot of work into 'optimizing' IE to be a client for those apps, so I don't see them throwing that away. Besides which, any security advantage in using the rendering engine and UI from Opera would be wiped out by adding in ActiveX and VBscript support.
Dvorak doesn't understand this aspect of IE, it seems, which is the only reason I can think of for his suggestion that Opera could replace IE. It's not about the web browsing, it's about the application platform. IE is an integral part of the MS proprietary web platform and that's not likely to change so easily.
fnord.
um....the Jetsons, not Jeffersons.
Geek used to be a four letter word. Now it's a six-figure one.
Well, to fan the flames:
1) IE7 blogs have already said to webmasters - get the beta, fix your sites, because it will *break* if you just use IE6 rendering as a test. To they already will be breaking IE6 only sites. Sometimes massively.
2) MS hates opensource. If they used FF, they would not be able to do any lock in / embrace and extend. They can't control the source code, and worse - if they change it, they have to give that back.
3) Finally, has MS ever really cared if some change they makes creates problems for other people?
All that said, I can't see MS buying Opera. First, I don't think Opera would sell, second, MS really really believes in there being no boundry in the UI between the web and your PC. Stupid as that seems to me, it has gotten them huge market share, and created lots of jobs for AV companies and the like.
Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
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.
I've been using Opera since Version 6 and have always liked its look and feel. But then I'm no browser zealot either. I use Firefox as well as NetCaptor and Konqueror, depending on how well they render specific websites. I like the way Opera and NetCaptor can save your open tabs after you close the browser and re-load all of them the next time you open it. I understand there is a Firefox extension that can provide this functionality, but I haven't yet found it, and I've looked through the extensions listings with no success. Probably need to google it somehow.
Back on the main topic, I disagree with Dvorak and think it would be a questionable business decision for MS to purchase Opera as a replacement for IE, so it probably won't happen. I've played around with IE7 in the Vista Beta CTP and found it has incorporated many of these features already. If MS can clone features from other products without having to purchase the whole company, they're more likely to do that.
"Nice," as in brushed metal theme? I can make Opera/Windows look *exactly* the same as Safari by getting Style XP.
"It's not much/any worse than Windows IE, I guess. Still, it's interface is horrid compared to firefox, camino, safari, shiira, etc so I've never considered using it."
Opera's default interface is exactly the same as every other web browser out there. I don't see what the problem is.
"As for bloated, I don't like having an email client built in, but it doesn't seem to get in the way."
It's less than 4 MB. If you consider that to be bloated, there's a problem ;) Also, Opera starts up faster than IE, renders pages faster, and backs up faster too. Email is turned off by default, and you have to set up an email account through Opera before you'd even know it's there.
"And the skins for Opera don't seem to do much."
You want your browser skin to match the rest of your OS, right? I've currently got my skin set to "Windows Native" so that it looks exactly the same as the rest of my applications. Add in any fancy skins to the OS, and Opera'll look the same as everything else too.
I'm using Windows XP with themes turned off to avoid the fisher price effect. I didn't see anything in the video that's functionally different from Opera: same google search field, RSS reader, and window placement as Opera. It seems to me that your only quibble is how ugly it is, which can be fixed very easily (as I've mentioned... I'm sure that there's a OSX Native skin option in the mac version). If your only complaint is that the UI is ugly, and you haven't tried Opera in a while, it might be worth the whopping 4 MB to do so.
I started using Opera about four years ago and haven't looked back. There are a few sites that simply refuse to work (notably those using intensive Java/Javascript applets), but the number is fewer and fewer every year. Not trying to get you to convert, but it's made my life a great deal simpler (using an uncommon browser means less virus worries, less hostile scripts, etc.; but then again, safari's uncommon too), and it might be worth it to you to give it a shot.
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.