Case in point: Earlier this spring, von Tetzchner vowed to swim from his native Norway to the United States if the Opera 8 browser was downloaded a million times in its first four days of release.
It wasn't even close, and a few days later von Tetzchner had to jump into a "freezing Oslo fjord" to begin his dog paddle to America.
As he celebrates Opera Software's 10th anniversary, co-founder von Tetzchner is naturally ready to make some big claims about the company's next decade. Too big for his britches? Maybe so, but after all the ups and downs of the first decade of the Internet Age, von Tetzchner can lay claim to an accomplishment that's beyond the reach of most of his colleagues from the Class of 1995: His company survived.
CNET News.com recently spoke with von Tetzchner about the future of browser development, Opera's competition with Microsoft and how he plans to morph the company into more than just the "alternative" to the mainstream.
Q: As you consider Opera's future, how much of your user base is made up of people who are always going to look for the alternative because they just hate Microsoft?
Von Tetzchner: Microsoft hasn't really improved on their browser for five years. That's a long time not to update a product and especially when it's the most used product in the world.
But that isn't anything new. What do you think will shake more peoples' thinking to adopt something that is not in the mainstream?
Von Tetzchner: When it actually comes down to governments saying, "Hey, there is a security problem," then things will change.
The next version of Internet Explorer is supposed to have enhanced security features, and Microsoft says that will take care of most of the complaints people have had with IE. Let's assume for the sake of argument that that's true. Where does that leave Opera?
Von Tetzchner: What you're describing is, I think, an unrealistic situation. I don't think Microsoft is capable--or even willing--to fix their security issues. If they do, it's great. I think it's good for the Internet and for the community that security is good in all browsers.
Now, security is not the real issue why people have been using Opera. Most of it has been because of functionality. We had things like sessions long ago, for example. I don't know about you, but I always have something like 10 or 20 Windows open at any one time, and if I have a power failure, I would like to get those Windows open at the same time--and I do because with Opera it's not a problem. If my machine hangs or there's some kind of problem, I just turn off the machine, turn it on again and I'm there.
How does the presence of alternative browsers like Mozilla and Firefox affect Opera? It seems that you'd all be fighting for that audience of people open to using alternatives to Microsoft.
Von Tetzchner: There are obviously some users who go between Opera and Mozilla. They have Opera one week, Mozilla the next week, and back to Opera....But we have a shared common goal: We would actually like to see open standards prevail.
Has it helped with sites that don't render well in Opera?
Von Tetzchner: There's been some of that. In some cases, sadly, they fix the site for Firefox and not for Opera. Obviously, as our market share grows, the problem becomes less and less. Mozilla is struggling with this. We've struggled with this.
See more CNET content tagged:
Opera Software, Mozilla Corp., Web browser, security, Microsoft Corp.
- Not sure I understand their business model
- by Mister Winky September 8, 2005 9:41 AM PDT
- Opera claims substantial year to year growth, but it still doesn't add up to much total market share. With Firefox in the picture, I don't see why people would pay for Opera unless it has one or two *killer app* features that Firefox (or IE7) doesn't. And even then, it's just a matter of time before the others catch up. <br /><br />The interviewee conventiently ducked the first question about whether their market is driven by anti-MS users. With Firefox available for free, it seems Opera is the ultimate non-conformist's browser. You can always get the fringe 5% to buy your product on the sake of different or anti-MS alone, but beyond that, it's a dicey proposition for a successful long-term business.<br /><br />Standards can be good, but the more standard-based web sites and web browsers become, the more commoditized the market for browsers becomes. If, a few years from now, 99% of the web works equally well in Firefox and Opera on account of greater standards adoption, who would buy Opera when Firefox is free and just as good?<br /><br />Lastly, to those who bash IE for its lack of a standards approach, try using IE + Outlook Web Access from Exchange 2003. It's a fairly incredible interface (allows right click context menus, drag and drop mail between panes and folders, etc.), it's fast as hell (no JVM overhead) and it simply works. Guaranteed application functionality and interoperability like this is why a lot of companies standardize on IE, even if it's not always the best solution for all users.<br /><br />Has any major company standardized on Opera?<br /><br />-Mister Winky
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- Well, Opera IS better
- by September 8, 2005 10:42 AM PDT
- Opera is a superior browser to Firefox, simply because its faster and all of its features are integrated. With Firefox I have to install several plugins to get the feature-set I'm looking for, and those plugins generally work less well than Operas already implemented features. And when a new Firefox version is released it sometimes breaks existing plugins and I have to hunt down new ones. It's a really messy system. Besides - Opera with all the features included is a smaller download than plain Firefox, another reason Opera simply is superior. <br /><br />I also dont have to spend a lot of time tweaking Opera, as opposed to Firefox. Opera is much more efficient in its handling of, well, everything, and is well worth the 30$ i paid for it. (Even tough how anyone can find the ads in the free version intrusive is beyond me - it is a small text add at the top of the browser for pete's sake!)<br /><br />Besides that Opera offers integrated email-app and a irc client, which basically means I just need one app for all my web needs. <br /><br />Having used both Firefox and Opera extensively I really can't see how anyone can find Firefox to be a better, or even just as good browser - it simply is inferior. The only thing Firefox has going for it is a slight advantage in web site compatability, but from Opera 8 onwards I hardly ever find pages that wont work properly.
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- As long as you stay home, you're safe?
- by Remo_Williams September 8, 2005 10:57 AM PDT
- You don't understand the business model from the interview, perhaps, but it's a public company, so they aren't hiding earnings. They're there, and the company is doing well.<br /><br />As for your example of an MS-only solution that's fast... on what hardware? And operating system? Believe it or not, the world doesn't run WinXP with 1Gb of Ram available on the desktop. The MS-only world is slowly shrinking, and when Linux or some other OS model comes to fore, Opera and Firefox will be there... and IE won't.<br /><br />Good luck with that Exchange Server, too.<br /><br />-R
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- Tsc .. tsc..
- by Rodrigo Paines September 8, 2005 11:41 AM PDT
- tsc.. tsc ..ms-users ...
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- You've got it.
- by David Arbogast September 8, 2005 11:57 AM PDT
- Its a silly article... the Opera guy has learned to duck Microsoft? How? By answering every question with a wordy "MS Sucks" statement, and maintaining market share so small that Microsoft doesn't consider you a threat.
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