Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner Answers Your Questions

Back in 2005 (last week) we sent Opera Software CEO Jon von Tetzchner twelve of your questions. This year (this week), we have his answers. Enjoy!

1) Re:Competing vs Free Open Source Product
by CSMastermind (847625)

Some have suggested that Microsoft should buy the Opera browser. How do you feel about this? If they did, would you plan to continue with work on the browser? Would you ever work for Microsoft?

Jon von Tetzchner:

We have been competing with Microsoft for a long time and I have not felt that they have always fought fairly. I would be disappointed if we were to end up in their hands and I find that very unlikely. I believe a lot of people at Opera would find them selves other work and that would include me.

2) What can we look forward to?
by robyannetta (820243)

I've been pimping Firefox since version 0.7 but have recently moved to Opera because Firefox doesn't natively support some things that Opera does:

local.google.com Native user agent switching
Opera 9's upcoming Acid2 compatibilty
Eye candy and general coolness factors

Can you give us a taste of new, unannounced features we'll see in future versions?

Jon von Tetzchner:

Thanks for using Opera. You have moved from one good browser to another. :)

There is a lot of new things coming in Merlin. We continue focusing on making Opera even smaller and faster, while adding a lot of useful, new features. Some of these features are by request from our user community, so feel free to add your own requests.

A lot of the focus is on improving what we have got. Our users want us to do this and we want to do this. This means that we will continue to focus on making Opera work faster and better with all the sites out there. We will continue to innovate new features that makes your browsing more pleasant. We aim to give you more control over your browsing. The idea is that you should feel the browser has been made for you. This is one of the reasons why we have so many different ways to do the same thing, as people are different and have different ways of working.

We will also work on improving the other parts of the program, such as the mail client, IRC client, RSS, News (nntp), etc. Each of these parts should follow the rule of being small, fast and user friendly.

3) Market growth?
by sheridan3003 (165213)

Do you find that the majority of Opera users are on the IT side of things, and if so how do you plan to get more users who are the "typical user", or only use their computer at work for their assigned tasks? Since IE is embedded when they get their new machine out of the box, how are you introducing Opera to users that probably have a limited understanding that they can have a different browser, or even more than one browser on their machine?

Jon von Tetzchner:

Our goal is to increase our user base significantly. Our user base in general has a higher degree of people which use the Internet extensively. Most of them have tried every other browser before choosing Opera. We consider it very important to focus on keeping our users happy and build from there. There is nothing better than a happy user and we will do what we can to innovate and push the limits to what you can expect in a browser. At the same time we will also try to remove any barriers for new users and make it easy for them to migrate to Opera.

In addition to this we will work on our distribution and marketing, of course, but nothing really beats a happy user that tells his friends and family.

4) Would you sell to Microsoft?
by lilmouse (310335)

Recently someone suggested that MS should simply buy Opera as a web browser for Vista. What do you think of that idea? Would you sell?

Jon von Tetzchner:

I am not interested in selling out to Microsoft. However, if Microsoft is interested in including Opera with Windows, we would be happy to provide them with it. I do believe that would be positive for the web in general.

5) Feature thieves
by tehshen (794722)

Opera has been an innovative browser for some time; it was one of the first to offer popup blocking, tabs (or MDI of some description), sessions, mouse gestures, and so on. However, since then, other browsers have implemented them as well; Firefox has extensions offering mouse gestures and sessions, and popup blocking and tabs are now commonplace. After offering so many features, would you prefer browsers such as Firefox and IE to come up with their own ideas instead of taking them from other browsers, or prefer the sharing of ideas so the web is better off overall?

Jon von Tetzchner:

Although our competitors have opened their eyes to some of our features, many are still only to be found in Opera and we aim to continue adding new ones. I am happy that we are considered the most innovate browser company and that is something we will be working hard to maintain. It is quite flattering that our features are being copied like that and I would prefer us to be in the position of being copied and not the other way around.

6) Google as a search partner?
by furnk (935156)

Can you offer more information on the terms of the recently announced agreement with Google?

What exactly is a "major presence"? Was Google just the obvious choice because of its scope, or is there some flirting going on in the hopes of a more lasting relationship?

Jon von Tetzchner:

Google provides what many people consider to be the best search engine. Our goal is to provide our users with the best solutions available, so Google was a natural choice, although there are other good choices out there.

The latest announcement about our agreement with Google with regards to Opera Mobile and Opera Mini states: "Opera will make Google Search a major part of the browser`s home screen." That means just that. Google search will be easy to find.

Google is an important partner of Opera and we hope to continue our cooperation into the future. Do not read anything more into that. It just means that we will always strive to get good partners for us to provide a strong product and thus increase our market share.

7) One critical thing missing from Opera...
by JaguarSavages (558510)

Better extensions/plugins. Firefox has earned great acclaim for its dynamic extension support. Extensions such as Fasterfox, Adblock, Web Developer, and many others are the sole reason people use Firefox over Opera (or any other browser). I know Opera is working to help unify the Netscape plugin API, but the upcoming version 9 doesn't appear to have anything that can match Firefox's extension capabilities. When will we see Opera support plugin/extensions as powerful as Firefox's?

Jon von Tetzchner:

Opera does have quite extensive extension capabilities today. User Javascipt is one such example. This is something we first used when we made the Bork version of Opera. We have later added this as a user feature and there are already more than 100 scripts available from the developer community. You can find a lot on userjs.org. Many of these script are very powerful.

Our concern with regards to extensions has been security and general usability. We have seen the number of security issues Microsoft has struggled with and many of them have been related to the APIs between the different applications. However, we do see a demand and we do tend to listen to demands from our users.

8) Will Opera ever go Open Source?
by PenguinBoyDave (806137)

I like Opera...in fact, I have stopped using Firefox in favor of Opera for reasons mentioned in someone elses question. Would you ever consider going back to charging for the browser, yet making it Open Source, and offering support for the paid version?

Jon von Tetzchner:

Thanks for choosing Opera. We apprieciate it. :)

We aim to keep Opera free. Our goal is to increase our market share and we have now taken a big step forward by making Opera free without a banner. We have already seen a good increase in downloads and we are adding significant resources to work on Opera in general and on the desktop.

I do not believe that making Opera open source would benefit us all that much. I do not think it has benefitted Netscape much either. I believe that we should work as closely with the community as possible and find ways to enable the community to engage and influence what we do to an even greater extent. I do not think that going open source would make us more efficient.

9) Web developers and Opera "testing"
by bushboy (112290)

I've worked in a few high profile companies in the UK who are all very serious about adhering to web standards, checking all designs in internet explorer, firefox and safari, but I've yet to encounter a company who will ensure that Opera renders page layouts correctly.

What level of market share would you say is required by Opera for web developers to ensure their layouts render correctly ?

Jon von Tetzchner:

IMHO, it is best for web developers to focus on following web standards. This still leaves them with having to code for IE, but most of the time, this will lead to the fastest and best result. I also think that is absolutely necessary as the web evolves from being desktop only to being cross-platform and cross-device.

I believe that web developers should strive to test with as many browsers as possible and that Opera should be part of that as one of the major browsers in the market. Very many sites are already testing with Opera as we do have a significant market share, with between 10 and 15 million active desktop users and more than 20 million mobile deployments so far.

10) Future of free version?
by simetra (155655)

Hi
I love Opera and bought it... several years ago, then a recent upgrade. THEN, you made it free!!!

So, that makes me think, maybe you made the PC version free, and are going to concentrate on the mobile versions, which you probably really make money on. Does this mean that the free PC version will stagnate? Or will future versions be built, with fun new features?

Also... how about a new logo? Or maybe a cross-marketing deal with Oprah?

Jon von Tetzchner:

We are increasing our efforts on the desktop as well as on mobile and other markets. We have big plans for our desktop version, so do not worry, you can expect even more in the future as we are adding programmers to work on the desktop as well as in the core, which benefits all versions of Opera.

No new logo is planned. Our feeling is that the current logo works well and it has been built over years. It is already being used by partners all across the world in promoting the fact that Opera comes with their products.

We have not plans for a cross-marketing deal with Oprah, but maybe it makes sense? :)

11) Bug tracking, developer tools and HTML/CSS/JS
by smurfsurf (892933)

1. Opera Bug Tracking System My experience with Opera's bug tracking system are rather frustrating. I can not check if some bug is already known (describing a bug and creating a test case is time consuming). Also, I reported some things and never ever got any feedback besides an automatic email. I do not know if Opera considers it a bug, if it is not a bug but an error on my side, if someone works on it, if it was fixed, simply nothing comes back. The Opera BTS is a black hole, and since some time now, I do not feel like making the effort to report bugs.

Do you plan to open up the BTS or at least allow the submitter to view the ticket? Or enhance the feedback?

Jon von Tetzchner:

Your feedback is well received. The BTS works very well for internal use, but I can understand that it is not optimal for those that would like to do more than just report an issue. We will discuss this internally and see what we can do. We still want it to be possible for people to register bugs without having to have an account in our system.

2. Developer Tools

How about a DOM Inspector (and a Javascript Debugger)? Firefox's DOM Inspector and XMLHttpRequest Monitor are dearly missing in Opera.

There are some excellent third party tools available (please see nontroppo.org/wiki/WebDevToolbar for a good starting point). We are also actively working on extending built-in solutions and there are some improvements with regards to that in Merlin as well. This is something we take very seriously as more and more people are using Opera to build applications.

3. HTML/CSS/JS

Any word on opacity support? On a Richtext Editing component?

Both are part of Merlin.

12) Norwegian babes
by HonkyLips (654494)

From previous Opera related posts on Slashdot, it has come to my attention that you have some real babes working for you in Norway. Are any of them single and if so, would they be interested in dating a guy who reads slashdot? BTW I use Safari but I can be persuaded to switch...

Jon von Tetzchner:

I must admit to not having total control over who of our employees are currently single and who are not, but I am sure some of our employees are single. However, who they date is clearly up to them.

I believe most people working at Opera read Slashdot either frequently or now and then. We are a very technical bunch.

Happy New Year to everybody at Slashdot! May the new year be very exciting and positive and peaceful!

-- Regards/Vennlig hilsen/Kær kvedja...
Jon S. von Tetzchner
Opera Software

Opera's Vision: www.opera.com/company/vision/

Dupe in the Q&A

[hal2814]

Can't even get through a Q&A without a dupe? Why is question 1 repeated in question 4? I realize they're not exactly the same but the information we get from 1 is the same as what we get from 4 and it should've been pretty obvious that would be the case.

Re:Serious? Joking?

[tgd]

I'm just wondering how that question got submitted to them, but my +5 question asking for Kari's phone number on the Mythbusters interview didn't.

*grumbles*

Re:-1, Troll

[JonN]

Underneath IE and FF you have Opera, which true, doesn't hold that much of the market. However Opera is a potential big player, because mobile internet is becoming more popular (Just look on the headlines today) and Opera is so far one of the best suited browsers for portable hardware.

Someone switched because of ACID2????

[b7j0c]

This is just moronic. Its a compliance test.

Re:Serious? Joking?

[_xeno_]

Based on this [opera.com], it would seem that Jon S. von Tetzchner does indeed have a sense of humor, so I'd guess that this was a strange attempt at some form of a joke. I think he's suggesting that they read Slashdot, so if any were actually interested, they could post here, and that's the joke?

But I could be wrong. I dunno. I really just wanted to post that link.

URL Autocomplete

[31415926535897]

Some of these features are by request from our user community, so feel free to add your own requests.

One feature I got hooked on back in the day was auto-URL completion by using Ctrl. So you type in "google" into the address bar, hit Ctrl+Enter, and the url would automagically become http://www.google.com/ [google.com] . Firefox took this a step further and have made Shift+Ctrl+Enter .org, and Shift+Enter .net. Naturally, I habitually did this in Opera when I tried it out, and it would not auto-complete, it would fail and then try .com, and by the time it got around to getting the url right, I could just type it in by hand. I think it would be nice to at least be able to turn this feature on.

The real reason I moved back to Firefox after I tried Opera (and I gave it a good month) was because one day, Gmail just stopped working. On different days, both at work and at home, I could not log back into Gmail no matter what I did (short of reinstalling Opera, because I'm just too lazy to do that). This also happened to a coworker; he switched back too.

Re:Open Source Opera

[pHatidic]

I think Firefox has benefitted much more from its open source style community than from the actual source code being open. However, if the source code weren't open then the community wouldn't have been formed around it. Sort of an interesting paradox.

Re:Serious? Joking?

[sstidman]

You're right, and that's just one of the areas where he blew it. Opera would have been better served to keep their answers somewhat lighthearted instead of so stiff. He didn't really answer some of the questions well, I don't think. He says in a couple of places that they will be improving Opera in Merlin but he does not give any clues at all about what those improvements are. He had a great opportunity to list all the new features, but he didn't bother. His predictable answers seem like fluff written by a marketing stiff.

Re:Woah, smaller and faster

[globalar]

When there is actual competition, not just two companies bouncing off one another. Now that we have three serious browsers again, Microsoft's IE Gorilla has to compete with both a lighter, refined Opera and an infinitely customizable, OS Firefox. I expect this particular emphasis has to do with Opera on the cellphones, which seems to be where they will try to make their stand against IE.

Benefit to Netscape the Company vs the Browsers

[Noksagt]

I do not believe that making Opera open source would benefit us all that much. I do not think it has benefitted Netscape much either.

Wow. Sit back and enjoy a cold one while we watch the Open Source fanboys rip him a new one :)

I am quite a fan boy (plug: donate to F/OSS [northwestern.edu] projects).

But he is right: Mozilla/Firefox probably didn't benefit Netscape. The company.

They open sourced it in 1998. Months later, they were bought by AOL & left to stagnate as a company. Their self-named browser is still unpopular. Fortunantely the open source derivatives aren't.

Netscape-derived browsers would probably be dead were it not for open source. They might have continued to cling at the niche of a few corporate deployments (as it was free, fairly easy to remotely administer, and was not IE), but that's it. There would be fewere fans, fewer promotion, and fewer users. They would not have put out anything like Firefox, which required some minimal level of community.

So open source proved good for users. Possibly good for the internet. It wasn't necessarily good for AOL-Netscape.

Re:Benefit to Netscape the Company vs the Browsers

[einhverfr]

But he is right: Mozilla/Firefox probably didn't benefit Netscape. The company.

Who else thinks we wouldn't have a Netscape browser today offered by any company if it wasn't open sourced back in 1998.

What did in Netscape had nothing to do with FOSS. It had to do with Microsoft. This is all relatively well documented in the lawsuit USDoJ v. Microsoft (IANAL, but it is worth reading the findings of fact, etc. and the appellate ruling). By the time Netscape was opened up, it was way too late for the company to build any sort of buisiness around it--- they had a steep uphill battle against the most powerful company in the industry.

This being said, I think it is very likely that it has helped Netscape's successor-in-interest, AOL. So while I think the reply might be technically correct, it isn't really very encompassing.

As for Opera, I don't make judgements about whether their company would be better off open sourcing the browser. Certainly they will need to compete with FOSS versions whether they do or not, and FOSS is competitively a double-edged sword. I am sure that if they wanted to make that transition, they would start by reducing the price to free of their desktop version and build a healthy services business around the product. THen it could be open sourced to Opera's benefit. But they wouldn't say so due to shareholder concerns until they were ready.

Re:Serious? Joking?

[tacid]

What's the matter with you /. guys? Can't understand humour without a ;) ending it? Just try using your imagination... Of course Jon von Tetzchner said this with a smile on his face...

However, it's a rather silly question, and not very funny, and I think Jon's rather dry but sarcastic reply fits it perfectly...

(and I am Norwegian, so I'm an expert on all Norwegians' sense of humour...) (if you didn't get the joke there, try inserting a ;) at the end of the line, before the closing parenthesis and compile it with your favourite plain text compiler)

Re:You missed me

[hkmwbz]

"I had, what I thought, was a good question. Why was it not asked?"

Maybe because it was crap and you are not up to date?

"How do you plan on making money when a free, open source product is directly competing with you?"

Opera is free as in beer now. Open source is irrelevant to most people. And competition doesn't mean that one can't make money.

Remember the Mozilla Corporation and how it was formed recently? They want to make money too!

So basically, your question was just completely stupid because Opera is freeware now.

Re:-1, Troll

[jonadab]

> a smaller chance of long-term survival?

Apparently you do not know your history. I'm not an Opera user myself (except for occasional testing purposes), but its long-term servival is pretty much settled. Of the dozen or so browsers with anything approaching significant market share, Opera is the second-oldest, after Netscape. In that time, Opera has never lost any significant percentage of what market share it has. Granted, it has also never had a very large market share, compared to the top two players. OTOH, which other two browsers are the top two players, and in what order, has changed three or four times while Opera has stayed consistently in the top four. Opera's long-term survival, assuming we define "long-term" in a way that makes sense in the context of the web browser market, isn't really in question.

Whether it will ever climb into the top two is another matter.