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Opera Purchase Rumour Control

Posted by Zonk on Fri Dec 23, 2005 08:24 AM
from the don't-believe-everything-you-read dept.
Microsoft The Internet Businesses
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.
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  • Monopolistic? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Trip Ericson (864747) on Friday December 23 2005, @08:34AM (#14325998) Homepage
    I wonder if government regulators would allow Microsoft to buy Opera at all. Wouldn't they see a problem with the company that controls 80%+ of a market buying out one of the few surviving competitors they have? There's Firefox, AOL... uh... Netscape doesn't count since it's a blend of Firefox and IE...

    I mean, I don't know, I just can't see it being allowed.
    • Competition? In what? Seriously. Opera is hardly competition for Microsoft. The Internet Explorer browser does not represent any significant revenue stream for Microsoft. They make money selling operating systems, office suites, programming languages, a few games, and a few odd bits of hardware like mice, trackballs, keyboard, oh...and some little video game console named "Xbox".

      But browsers? Can anyone name the last time Microsoft sold a browser?
    • Netscape doesn't count since it's a blend of Firefox and IE...

      That's a new one.
      • It's a decent browser, I just don't like the feel of it.

        Regardless of how small it may be, it's STILL a competitor. I'm thinking really hard about Windows-capable browsers and all I'm coming up with is:

        Internet Explorer
        Firefox
        Opera
        Netscape (which doesn't count)

  • I nominate this for Slashdot Story of the Year (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2005, @08:34AM (#14325999)
    Microsoft to buy Opera... maybe... not yet, but it could happen someday.

    FASCINATING.

  • They say that no news is good news but I say that news site reporting no-news is bad news.
  • Having sumbitted one of those articles myself, I am very relieved that it is not true (yet).

  • Mobile market (Score:4, Interesting)

    by uncl_bob (529354) on Friday December 23 2005, @08:37AM (#14326017) Journal
    As progster on osnews speculated: "Microsoft wants it for the mobile market and they'll kill the pc version of opera."

  • Other way 'round (Score:3, Funny)

    by trianglecat (318478) on Friday December 23 2005, @08:37AM (#14326018)
    Actually I heard that Opera was thinking of buying Microsoft.

  • Is for the Mozilla foundation buying Opera

  • IE team would be pretty surprised... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dioscaido (541037) on Friday December 23 2005, @08:42AM (#14326031)
    The way the IE team has been killing themselves lately developing IE7, I'd be pretty surprised if MS turned around and bought Opera. It would also seem like an odd time to make the buy, given that IE7 ships next year.
    • Stranger things have happened.

      Some years back, Apple was killing its developers trying to get Copeland out of the door. It too was shipping "next year", but they canned it in the end and bought NeXTStep to base their next version on.

      Of course, MS always manage to hold to their release schedules, don't they? What's that? They don't?

      If the IE7 team pull it off, then it becomes one more potential competitor quashed. If they don't, then it's a good fall back position.
        • 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 problem

  • The PR gal is a hottie (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2005, @08:44AM (#14326039)
    I think I'll too have to call her [opera.com] about this rumour.
    • 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 sa

  • So ? (Score:5, Funny)

    by alexhs (877055) on Friday December 23 2005, @08:44AM (#14326043) Homepage Journal
    Slashdot. Counternews for nerds, Stuff that might matter one day... or not.

  • Dumbest. Idea. Ever. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ip_freely_2000 (577249) on Friday December 23 2005, @08:54AM (#14326074)

    If MS needs a new browser, which they don't, it would be FAR more strategic to use Firefox, a la Netscape. Even though they would not own the browser, and they would be returning some features back to the public, they could use new Firefox features to drive sales of their server based products.

    There is no money in browsers (just ask Opera), but lots to be made in selling server software.
    • If MS needs a new browser, which they don't, ...

      Nobody is really saying that MS needs or wants a new browser.

      The scenario is that they buy out opera and shut it down, to eliminate a competitor.

    • Re:Dumbest. Idea. Ever. (Score:5, Informative)

      by spif (4749) on Friday December 23 2005, @09:41AM (#14326330) Journal
      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.

  • They cross-check the articles now? (Score:5, Funny)

    by rainer_d (115765) on Friday December 23 2005, @08:54AM (#14326079) Homepage
    Christ! What's next? No more dupes? No more early "FreeBSD x has been released"?
    An early New Years Resolution?
    I'm speechless.
  • How about fixing IE so it is safe to be used on any OS?

    Or is Opera somehow going to be better now that it is owned by Microsoft?

  • Credulousness Abounds (Score:3, Insightful)

    by lseltzer (311306) on Friday December 23 2005, @09:01AM (#14326107)
    Isn't it obvious that this is just a result of someone confusing Dvorak's "they should buy Opera" into "they have bought Opera"? And it really is inconceivable that they would buy Opera. NFW.

  • Good PR for Opera (Score:3, Interesting)

    by QuietLagoon (813062) on Friday December 23 2005, @09:02AM (#14326109)
    If nothing else, Opera is getting noticed in a lot more places these days. I wonder how the downloads are going?

  • Oh please... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by nwbvt (768631) on Friday December 23 2005, @09:06AM (#14326127)
    "Which, of course, is not to say it won't happen ... it just hasn't happened yet."

    It very well could never happen. I have seen no evidence even suggesting that MS even wants Opera, other than a very speculative and not very well thought out article written by some troll. This is yellow journalism at its best, when someone comes out and refutes an entirely made up story, claim "it still could happen".

  • For linking to ANY article written by that idiot Dvorak. If Slashdot picks it up, his article gets steam and then other sites will make assumptions and false alerts based on shoddy reporting and opinions by the one and only, Dvorak.

    God this really boggles the mind...

  • Microsoft to buy the Internet from Al Gore (Score:5, Funny)

    by wasserja (808913) on Friday December 23 2005, @09:15AM (#14326170) Journal
    I just read from www.icantbelieveitsnottrue.com that Microsoft has inked a deal with Al Gore to purchase the rights to the Internet.

  • Bass (was: tenor) (Score:5, Insightful)

    by olovjohansson (814771) on Friday December 23 2005, @09:15AM (#14326171) Homepage
    {i blogged this and shamelessly copy-and-pasted it from http://fancy.se/ [fancy.se] with lost links and formatting, but anyways}

    There's a rumour that Microsoft has bought Opera software, makers of the (closed source) fast, cross-platform and lightweight Opera web browser, Opera mobile (Symbian S60, Windows mobile) and the recently released Opera mini (for Java phones).

    It's not hard to understand why Microsoft would be interested. Opera is very standards compliant, more so than IE6 (and IE7 perhaps). Opera is obviously very well engineered, with a very fast renderer and extremely low memory footprint. Most importantly, Opera runs on platforms that Microsoft wants to reach out to and (in the end) dominate or conquer.

    Such platforms are Symbian OS (in different series), a common OS for mobile phones. Opera rules that territory today.

    Such platforms are Maemo (you've heard about Nokia 770, haven't you?), the exciting new open platform that Nokia puts work into, based on the Linux-kernel, X11 and GTK+, to name some open source technologies. Opera rules that territory today.

    Such platforms are desktop Linux (Fedora Core, Debian, Ubuntu, SUSE, Mandriva, Slackware, RHEL, CentOS, the list goes on..) with KDE (QT) and/or Gnome (GTK+) integration. Linux users today mainly use Firefox or Konqueror, desktop Linux are getting more and more momentum and Microsoft understands that. Microsoft wants to reach that platform, for the same reasons that they want to reach Mac OS X (although most OS X users runs Safari or Firefox), and compared to porting IE to Linux from scratch (which could be a huge project depending on their codebase) lots of time could be saved by going with Opera (which has a Linux QT-version today). I expect Microsoft to port Windows Media Player to Linux soon too, for the same reasons that they have it for OS X, but that's a different story.

    Such platforms are Mac OS X, since the old Internet Explorer for Mac will receive no more updates after new-year and will cease to exist as a download a month after that. Apple releasing Safari (the Konqueror technology KHTML-based browser) for OS X was Microsofts worst nightmare, they lost their dominance (yes, most OS X users ran IE before that) in an increadibly short time. At first it looked liked they wouldn't do anything about it and keep a kind of wait-and-see attitude (halting all serious work on IE for Mac). They need to hold on to OS X, either Microsoft ports IE7 to Mac OS X (which they could as they've done it before, but i suspect it's a whole lot of work) or they try a short-cut - Opera.

    Such platforms are Windows mobile, their own platform for handhelds and phones. Many users seem to prefer Opera before IE for this platform, with Microsoft buying Opera their dominance would be total (neither Firefox nor a KHTML-based browser are available for this platform).

    And actually, such platforms are Windows XP and Vista. Microsoft wants to grab users from Opera and Firefox.

    If this rumour is true and Microsoft will buy Opera, I expect Microsoft to merge the "full" Opera web browser with Internet Explorer, and release it as IE8. This won't happen until summer 2007 at earliest, and likely even later (due to their track record). IE7 will release as planned (first half 2006 or something) and not contain a single line of Opera-code (it's in beta already). I expect IE8 to be more like IE7 with some Opera-technology merged in rather than the opposite. This could be a huge project and Microsoft could choose to skip most of it. They will look into Opera's renderer though, and they will look into the cross-platform nature of Opera.

    The bottom line is, buying Opera is a cheap (relatively speaking, you've seen all the TV-commercials for Xbox 360 haven't you?) ticket into other competitors territory for Microsoft. Grabbing existing Symbian userbase would probably be worth it alone.

    They might also just as well buy it and discontinue the whole thing, trying to help sales for Windows Mobile as a

  • If rumours were edible (Score:4, Interesting)

    by FishandChips (695645) on Friday December 23 2005, @09:18AM (#14326202) Journal
    If I ate a mince pie for every end-of-year IT rumour on the net I'd have exploded by now.

    The rather feverish interest in this stuff marks a real change. A year ago, it could have been announced that Microsoft had bought a B-52 and ten atomic bombs and everyone would have turned over and gone back to sleep. Now, the merest whiff of action on the Microsoft-Google-Yahoo front has the pundits running.

    But I can't help wondering whether a little game of chicken is going on, with folks being bounced into buying something for fear the next guy will get it. Ebay and Skype, Google and AOL - these and others are not really matches made in heaven. It will be interesting to see how the dice have fallen on this craze in, say, a year's time. But I hope MS don't buy Opera, for a simple, selfish reason. I like using Opera, and I like it just the way it is.

  • Why do the press print quotes like: (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Afty0r (263037) on Friday December 23 2005, @09:25AM (#14326240) Homepage
    ""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 actually has a meaning of.... NOTHING.

    It is not a confirmation, nor a denial - she has skipped around the question by making a joke. The reporter should ask her outright again to answer the question, or not quote at all.

    The quote means nothing - she could be telling the truth, *and* know that Microsoft has taken over Opera *and* the quote would still be correct. (If MS took a majority stake in Opera, Operas employees wouldn't work for MS, they would work for Opera... *and* you can bet most jobs wouldn't be moving to Washington anyway).

  • Because Digg said so... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DeepDarkSky (111382) on Friday December 23 2005, @09:27AM (#14326263)
    I think it's because of this Digg "article": Microsoft Buys Out Opera [digg.com] that many people think it's true

  • Extra, extra, read all about it! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Odin's Raven (145278) on Friday December 23 2005, @10:28AM (#14326572)
    Deranged drivel from pointless pundit once again shown to have no basis in reality.

    Next /. story: Dvorak unable to find posterior with both hands, proclaims demise of buttocks as we know them.

    Next /. retraction: Arse in previous Dvorak stories positively identified, proven to exist. (Which, of course, is not to say that the disappearance of arses won't happen ... just that it hasn't happened yet.)

  • This is a huge deal! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Cally (10873) on Friday December 23 2005, @10:45AM (#14326668) Homepage
    This is an incredibly big deal, not because of anything in the story itself, but because of those magic words "followed up by phone". Someone submitted what looked to the Slashdot editors like a really interesting story, but the credibility of which seemed a little flaky. They then *checked the story with a primary source* themselves. (OK, roblimo's working for OSDN rather than Slashdot, IIRC.) But this means that from now on when Slashdot runs a story that turns out to have been trivially falsifiable by a phone call or couple of emails, they can't use the excuse of "we just report what people submit". Fact chgecking... the thin end of a slippery wedge, if you ask me ;)

  • Their money is on IE 7 (Score:3, Insightful)

    by BeatdownGeek (687929) on Friday December 23 2005, @10:51AM (#14326709) Homepage
    Come on. They've put how much time and money into developing IE7? No way they would do all that then scrap it for Opera. Not to say that Opera isn't better (I don't know). But it would be an incredible waste. If they were going to do such a thing, they would have bought Opera before they started developing IE7.

  • the PR person would be the last to know (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rnd() (118781) on Friday December 23 2005, @12:57PM (#14327429) Homepage
    Microsoft and Google both have their own PR departments, and any purchase of Opera would be targeted at 1) the code, and 2) some of the developers. The rest of the employees would probably not know anything about it. At best, the owners of the company, a major shareholder or two, and possibly a few key people who need to be given an incentive to stick around after the acquisition will be informed. The rest may be kept on board as a gesture of good will or may be let go unceremoniously a few weeks later.

  • CoolTechZone's credibility? (Score:3, Informative)

    by SleepyHappyDoc (813919) on Friday December 23 2005, @02:10PM (#14327855)
    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.

  • Amazing..... (Score:3, Funny)

    by ericdano (113424) on Friday December 23 2005, @02:11PM (#14327858) Homepage
    Amazing. Slashdot actually has a phone? And they were able to dial it and talk to a person to verify an "article" here? Wow. Hell must be really cold right now.

    • OPERA IS NOT WRITTEN IN QT (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2005, @08:44AM (#14326042)
      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.
      • Opera uses Qt and is non-open-source, so I'm pretty sure they pay to license it. Then again, I think the same's true of motif. Anyway, the mac version certainly looks like Qt, and it would be a waste not to enable Qt on mac/win if you want it (just like if you really want to use motif on unix, you can.
    • I heard there would be a 3GHz PPC a few years back , Flying cars would be the norm ,men would live on the moon by 1999 ,the world would end on various dates ,Elvis is alive and living life as a woman in Wisconsin USA , Aliens are amongst us and control the government and Dewey won the US election all those years ago.
      Sadly that was all a load of nonsense , like 99.999% of this stuff .. especially stuff spouted by Dvorak or similar

      • Re:i heard (Score:5, Funny)

        by S.O.B. (136083) on Friday December 23 2005, @09:21AM (#14326210)
        men would live on the moon by 1999

        Don't do it. They'll be forced to wear polyester suits with bell bottoms. Then there'll be a horrible accident and the moon will get blown out of Earth's orbit and send the moon and it's inhabitants on an interstellar journey encountering alien races and strange powerful forces. Wait...it's 2005 and that hasn't happened. Damn you Gerry and Sylvia Anderson! Damn you all to hell!!!
    • John Dvorak is like those crazy preachers that predict the end of the world every five years, and then every five years make adjustments to their original predicitons. He's the Charles Taze Russell or Ellen G. White of computing.
            • "I agree with the original post that it's ugly, but thats probably because I'm used to the really nice Mac OS X cocoa applications such as Safari."

              "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

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