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Chinese Consortium's $1.24B Bid To Acquire Opera Software Fails, $600M Deal Agreed Instead (tech.eu)
The $1.24 billion takeover of Opera Software by a Chinese consortium of internet firms has failed, Opera said on Monday. The deal did not receive the required regulatory approval in time of a final deadline. But they will be doing some business. The consortium will now acquire only certain parts of Opera's consumer business, including its mobile and desktop browsers, for $600 million on an enterprise value basis. Tech.eu reports: What will not be acquired by the consortium is: Opera Mediaworks, Apps & Games and Opera TV. In 2015, Opera says these business units combined delivered revenues of $467 million. The company will report second-quarter results on August 31, 2016.
Actually, it was the units that were NOT being acquired that had annual revenues of $460M.
I was led to this place, a place I can't understand. A place that demands my belief just as strongly as my disbelie
Too bad. I only recently discovered Opera on Android, and have been using it ever since because it has an in-built ad-blocker. Google will probably never deliver an ad-blocker to Chrome for Android because Google is an advertising company and it would be about shooting themselves in the foot. But I will any day choose a bit slower and more annoying browsing experience over installing Chinese spyware on my phone. So long, Opera.
Why would anyone pay that much for Opera?
Why would anyone pay $600M for something with annual revenues of $460M? Best hopes of 5 years to recover the investment, but more likely 10 or more years? That makes no sense.
Because recovering your entire investment in 5-10 years is considered a very good outcome? You do realize that the stock market returns as a whole over the long term are in the ballpark of 10% per annum, right?
Maybe they want Opera because its the #1 browser in Africa and a strong #2 in many other places?
"His name was James Damore."
Sadly, I agree. I'd already jumped ship to Vivaldi when it first came out early last year, but have given it up recently for stability and profile-syncing reason...but I didn't go back to Opera, I'm on FF for now, only until Vivaldi matures a bit more. The news about being bought by a Chinese consortium did it for me -__-
When Opera ASA switched their desktop browser's rendering engine to Blink in 2012 - they were an Ads & Services company. 600M seems highly overpriced if all the consortium is getting is Opera's Blink based Android|Mac|Windows|Linux browser.
If and when Firefox completes its addon|extension overhaul to be "Chrome-compatible", it's quite possible we wont even have a single browser that allows the end-user to be in control.
Opera 12 (maybe even all the way back to version 7 or 8) has UserScript that can completely override javascript functions - meaning if some website wants to run function FOOBAR(), you can shadow that function so the code you want runs instead.
Firefox still allows the end-user and extensions to change the page prior to rendering - which isn't as powerful as Opera 12 and its predecessors, it gives FAR FAR FAR more control than Blink based browsers allow.
It would seem this acquisition doesn't even include Presto - so that code base is thoroughly closed and dead.
I loaded Opera Mini on a Jellybean device, and tested it against the best-known SSL/TLS Scanner.
Initial tests passed with flying colors, and indicated that I was using the "Presto" rendering engine, which routes traffic through Opera's server farm for compression.
However, after I reduced the "data savings" parameter in settings from "extreme" to "high," Opera Mini then FAILS with flying colors, because it's using the Jellybean Webkit directly (that lacks TLS1.2, bundles bad ciphers, etc.).
This is deceptive. Don't install this product.
It's an old bug. If you have a paid Slashdot subscription, one of the perks is being able to see and comment on stories a little while before they show up on the front page for non-subscribers. Sometimes they show up that way for everybody.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
Man, for the days before Obama when people could assume the US government was generally on their side
Yeah, 'cause George W Bush and the USA PATRIOT Act really gave me a warm fuzzy feeling about the government...
"If there was a gay Afro-Puertorican Linux distribution, I'd give it a try" ~lucm
I'm saying there is a massive difference between backdoor hardware and a backdoor in a software component. OP claimed the first was going on, which is clearly bunk.
From 27 Apr., 2016: "Don't use Dolphin browser in incognito mode" https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/4gnb2b/dont_use_dolphin_browser_in_incognito_mode/ From 25 Oct., 2011: "WARNING: Dolphin's collection of your browsing history": http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1319529