Firefox behind Opera’s Losses?

Firefox behind Opera’s Losses?

The fact is that the popularity of Opera remains rock solid in the loyal user base in spite of the fact that Firefox or any other browser has invaded the online world. They have survived everything including the Internet Explorer, which absolutely ate away Netscape Communicator. And anyways, most of Opera’s earning comes from the mobile market where Internet Explorer has a minor share hold and Mozilla does not even exist at this moment.

Opera Software ASA in their third quarter report showed red numbers. There was a flurry of articles in the media claiming the invasion of Firefox behind this. One of the big stories was on Slashdot, which really sounded like Opera is in trouble or something.

Now being an Opera user since quiet sometime this sounded like a worrying fact to me. So I asked some Opera representatives on the IRC Channels. There is no official word out from Opera Company as we speak. However, the general idea we get from the company people was that the company is expanding with new offices in Japan and USA and with new hirings taking place, a lot of investment is being made.

One of the customer representatives in his personal Blog has this to say:

It is odd how many newspapers and the Slashdot story focus on the weak dollar and marketing as our primary explanation for the loss, when I think the Q3 presentation made it pretty clear that it was primarily because we are hiring, but that there are other contributing factors as well. I guess explanations that make sense often don’t make the best headlines…

I can assure everyone that everything is going according to plan, and that this was a strategic move to secure future revenue. Opera is not going away any time soon.

Sounds pretty assuring to me. Moreover, the active progress being done on the browser to release the Opera 7.60 final tells me, they are doing pretty well! The Preview Release 3 is really good.