Opera Browser Creators Planning IPO 368
Iphtashu Fitz writes "Norwegian web browser developer Opera Software is reportedly planning an Initial Public Offering on the Oslo Stock Exchange next month. According to a press release issued today, Opera's revenue for the last quarter grew 108.7% and CEO Jon S. von Tetzchner stated that 'After developing and refining the technology and commercial side for nine years, Opera Software is now ready for public listing.' Opera has, according to CNET News, gained popularity in the past few months thanks, in part, to having ported their well-known browser to smartphones."
Re:I wonder which (Score:5, Interesting)
Frankly, I'll keep my money in safer places....
Re:I wonder which (Score:5, Interesting)
So, I would assume, Google. Also factor in the demand factor for the shares, expectation of being the next Netscape, etc.,
Will be interesting to see how Opera performs as a public company
Sounds interesting. (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sure there are quite a few people that'd like to get in on this, but not if it's prohibitively expensive.
Will this be an end to a decent browser? (Score:3, Interesting)
I fear the day when google goes public. It will be the end of usable websearching as we know it. (Hides from the corporate whores jumping up and down and foaming at the mouth)
I Was Getting Afraid (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm glad the company is still going strong, as Opera is my browser of choice. While I like Mozilla and it's brother FireBird, I still think Opera is the finest browser available. People may laugh at me for buying licenses, but the overall experience has been great.
Can someone explain... (Score:4, Interesting)
They already have a product (so no money needed to front the development). They alreay show a profit. Wouldn't an IPO just mean they need to share their profit, in exchange for a wad of cash that they don't really need for anything, and that will actually cost them, in the long term?
Same idea applies to Google. Single most successful search engine in history, and they want to share their profits by going public?
I just don't get it...
Opera OK (Score:3, Interesting)
But it doesn't work with Ebay. My password is rejected everytime I use Opera and accepted everytime I use Internet Explorer 5.
Also whenever I use Yahoo! mail with Opera and I am entering my password, the prompt JUMPS to the user name box and the characters that I type appear appended to my user name. Again this doesn't happen in Internet Explorer.
I sure wish they could fix this nonsense.
If you want stock gain, buy into a company that does really nasty things to people. For instance, the company that makes Tasers, those guns that shoot darts that police use to zap protesting college students with 50000 volts of electricity, has seen their stock price go from $2 to over $120 in a year.
Re:Opera (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Bad timing. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Opera (Score:5, Interesting)
If you're willing to learn the interface and customize it to your liking, there's no doubt in my mind that there's nothing faster. Most importantly, you can use it with either the mouse OR the keyboard without any loss of efficiency. From my experiences, most other browsers have functions that can only be done with one or the other.
just my $.02
Opera rocks. Seriously. (Score:3, Interesting)
Not to mention all of the stuff that comes in the nice tight package - tabbed browsing, popup blocking (including "block all but requested" - there are legitimate uses for popups, you know), mouse gestures, keyboard browsing, etc with no extra setup or packages required.
Then there's the stuff that's really making them money now - stuff like small-screen rendering, which makes smartphones and the like reasonably useful without requiring the entire contents of the web to be rewritten.
And yes, I like it so much I paid for it (several times by now), knowing that there are plenty of viable free alternatives. It's just that good.
Insightful my arse (Score:4, Interesting)
They need the money (Score:5, Interesting)
In my opinion, going public is both the best and the worst thing that can happen to a company, from the employee perspective. I've worked for a private company, a public company, and a private company that went public. In a public company you can make a lot of money off your stock options (assuming you have some). But the atmosphere in a private company is much more agreeable, with the lines of communications much more open. When my last company went public, it was like a door slammed and all information about how the company was doing, and what potential customers we were talking to, disappeared. We essentially woke up after the party, feeling rich, and realized nobody would talk to us anymore.
FUD (Score:5, Interesting)
There has been a single handful of security issues in the past years, which were either solved with a fixed build even before the vulnerability was made public, or at most a few days later.
There are currently no open vulnerabilities.
In what sense is this 'worse than IE'?
I've got an idea!!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
Tiny-screen browsing (Score:3, Interesting)