Blog: Opera switching to WebKit (also announces they now have 30 million users)

[menotu]

Oslo, Norway — February 13, 2013

Opera Software today announced reaching the milestone of 300 million monthly users across all its browser products on phones, tablets, TVs and computers.

"300 million marks the first lap, but the race goes on," says Lars Boilesen, CEO of Opera Software. "On the final stretch up to 300 million users, we have experienced the fastest acceleration in user growth we have ever seen. Now, we are shifting into the next gear to claim a bigger piece of the pie in the smartphone market."

To provide a leading browser on Android and iOS, this year Opera will make a gradual transition to the WebKit engine, as well as Chromium, for most of its upcoming versions of browsers for smartphones and computers.

"The WebKit engine is already very good, and we aim to take part in making it even better. It supports the standards we care about, and it has the performance we need," says CTO of Opera Software, Håkon Wium Lie. "It makes more sense to have our experts working with the open source communities to further improve WebKit and Chromium, rather than developing our own rendering engine further. Opera will contribute to the WebKit and Chromium projects, and we have already submitted our first set of patches: to improve multi-column layout."

http://www.opera.com/press/releases/2013/02/13/

[Just17]

Interesting move .....

[Bald Brick]

Worth reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebKit

[menotu]

Opera Press Releases 15 Feb 2013

Opera Buys SkyFire

“Rocket Optimiser on average provides mobile networks with a 60 per cent boost in capacity by reducing the size of video and other multimedia content as needed to fit the available bandwidth.

“Skyfire can detect when specific users are facing poor quality of experience or connections that need assistance, and intervene in milliseconds

The acquisition price includes a mix of cash and stock, with an upfront consideration of US$50 million (including US$8 million of cash on the Skyfire balance sheet) and performance based earn-out payments over three years, including US$26 million in cash held in escrow and funded upfront, that can bring the total deal size to $155 million

http://www.opera.com/press/releases/2013/02/15/

[menotu]

Jon Russelll - 25 February 2013 - arstechnica

Opera launches Opera Mediaworks to unite its ad businesses, form world’s largest mobile ad platform

Opera has united its mobile advertising businesses under one roof after it launched Opera Mediaworks as a fully-owned subsidiary, which it says is the world’s largest mobile ad platform. The business amalgamates a number of the publishing and advertising services that Opera has bought in recent times, in addition to a new real-time targeting service for mobile ads that has launched today.

The Norwegian-headquartered browser marker — which recently adopted the open-source Webkit standard – has spent more than $100 million buying companies like AdMarvel, 4th Screen Advertising and Mobile Theory, and now is time to put those units together “under one umbrella to make things more simple”, an Opera spokesperson told TNW.

Opera has a formidable ad platform which saw $400 million of publishing revenue in 2012, up from $240 million in 2012. (2011 ?? ) It serves 50 billion ad impressions per month across its network of 12,000 sites and applications. Opera Mediaworks counts 20 of the top 25 global media companies and 70 of the top 100 Advertising Age advertisers among its clientele, each of which is aiming to get a piece of its 300 million plus monthly users.

That reach makes it the world’s largest mobile ad platform, according to Mahi de Silva, who is CEO of Opera Mediaworks.

http://www.operamediaworks.com/

http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2013/02/25/opera-launches-opera-mediaworks-to-unite-its-ad-businesses-form-worlds-largest-mobile-ad-platform/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheNextWeb+%28The+Next+Web+All+Stories%29