A. Most browsers available with the cell phones simply allow you to access some specialised contents and not the complete source of internet. In contradiction to this our philosophy is to render internet to everyone. Opera Mini is a Client Server solution, that means we have a small client software running on the cell phone while most of the hard work (resource hungry) work is done by a remote Opera server. The major benefit is that we compress the data, which means you can get a much faster data even on a low bandwidth connection. We make sure that all can access the internet via mobile even if the current network is not fast. Most browsers only allows specialised contents. And opera mini has no restrictions. We compress the data .

Q. What is the business model of Opera Software?

A. We get paid by different content providers for which we make content available, for example Google Search, we try to gather content which is geographically most relevant to their searches. We also have deals with few companies and make available contents that are relevant to them and these operators pay us.

A. My Opera is a community portal, that has Blogs, Forums, Picture sharing and much more. We have some one and a half million regular members and more than 10 million visitors per month. People basically come here to exchange opinions, forums, articles, photos and blogs.

Q. Whats the major difference between Opera Mini and Opera Mobile?

A. Opera Mobile is a resource rich web browser for cell phones; where as Opera Mini is a lite weight version of Opera browser. Opera Mobile need to be installed onto the cell phone and hence only compatible devices can be used; on the other hand the Opera Mini is dominantly driven by the server and can be used on a huge list of cellular devices. As rightly said, every coin has two sidesc Opera Mini gives a very rich user experience but some feature rich site may not load properly on it and on the other side the Opera Mobile provides perfect view for almost any webpage on the Internet, but may not be supported by primitive handsets. And so if you commonly visit advanced sites we recommend Opera Mobile and if you surf normal websites we recommend you to go for Opera Mini. Also, both of the applications can be installed on a single compatible device for customised requirements.

Q. What kind of growth do you expect in the number of users for mobile internet browsing in coming couple of years in India?

A. There shall be a very significant growth. Overall 60 million users / month on the internet are from India and India has the 3rd largest user base in world. As in India many people do not have access to internet through other means and hence mobile internet is growing very rapidly. And with the use of powerful browser like Opera Mini we see a very strong growth.

Q. Will 3G technology be helpful in boosting the growth of Opera Mobile or Mini in India?

A. The faster the network, the better the experience. Although we are doing best with the current network, 3G shall certainly boost our products.

Q. Few words on Opera and iPhone.

A. There are many people requesting Opera Mini on IPhone, but the SDK (software development kit) of iPhone arises some technical hurdles for developing browsers. Even the browser available with iPhone is pretty good, but at the same time it doesnt provide the compression that is provided by Opera Mini for better web experience. This is one of the major reason for which we are getting repeated request to develop Opera Mini for the IPhone.

IPhone was introduced as a web phone and enables people to have rich web experience, which is what exactly we would like to providec In fact we would like to help anyone to get online using mobile phone.

Q. What are the addition features that people may see in the upcoming version of Opera?

A. We are always working on new versions in our labs but we have to be very careful and we cant really talk about the features of the new versions.

Q. Can secured transactions be done using Opera Mini or Mobile?

A. If you are running Opera Mobile you have direct connection with the site and you can do online secured transactions very simply. Its same as using Opera or any other browser on your desktop. Also the lite version Opera Mini has a security rich encrypted connection to support all your secured transactions. Therefore secured transactions can be done by both Opera Mini and Opera Mobile.

Q. Are you planning to launch any new mobile platform products?

A. Our major focus is on web technology. We have Opera Browser, Opera Mobile, Opera Mini. The way we see the world everything is becoming browser based and hence our major focus area remains to be browser technology. And so any of our future products shall be majorly dependent on browser technology.

Q. Does opera support online streaming of multimedia (music and videos)?

A. In the Opera Mobile and Mini version the multimedia depends on the availability of the specific video codec available on the phone. Although we connect with them we do not make the codec. For instance you can view mobile version of Youtube.Com on your Opera Min and Mobile browsers.

Q. Which is the most widely used device installed with opera?

A. The most popular phone according to our reports is Nokia N70 following Nokia N73, Nokia 6300, Sony Ericsson K750, Black Berry are amongst the top phones used in India.

Q. What do want to convey by better web experience in regards with Opera?

A. We are the company that does one thing, provides web browsing. We optimise and try to find solutions to enrich your internet surfing experience. We not only develop for today but also for future. Our focus is on usability and user feedback.

Opera & India:

Q. Competitors in Indian Market?

A. The same competitor worldwide shall be faced by us even in India. But we shall outperform the competition as we are trying to provide full internet access to our users with enriched surfing experience.

Q. Trends of new technology flowing in Indian market?

A. There has been a very significant growth in technology in India and mobile technology has played a major role in it.

Q. What kind of market share Opera is looking in India?

A. We are leading the world market in mobile based browsers and we would continue the same trend in India.

Q. Nokia being market leader in India, do feel the heat of competition from their web browser?

A. Although Nokia browser is not bad at all, actually speaking Opera Mini is being included on lots of Nokia phones and in most case, if Opera is not available we have found that it is been downloaded by the end users. We have a strong product accepted by end users and mobile phone manufacturing companies.

Q. Will WAP vanish from the India market?

A. WAP should completely vanish from the planet. It should never be introduced. People want internet on mobile and with the emerging high speed network availability, WAP shall soon disappear.

Q. Future of Mobile market in India, with respect to VAS (Value Added Services)

A. Higher the speed more interesting things you can do. I can only see a bright future ahead. For example in current speed network, multimedia streaming is a really boring thing to do. But with technology like 3G the web experience shall really improve. And with this high speed people will move more and more communication to mobile Internet.

Q. Firefox, Internet Explorer 7 and Operac a quick snapshot.

A. Firefox and Internet Explorer are both nice browsers. But we have a very efficient browser with respect to, compressed data being sent, less resources consumption, session availability for long time, keyboard shortcuts, mouse gestures and fit to window. And so if the network is fast the Opera would be much more efficient as compared to any other browser. Generally when it comes to security, the phishing attacks are guarded well with Opera, however the security is highly dependent on fixing any open issue and we have a very nice reputation for that. We solve all the open issues or bugs very fast. You can check for more stats at www.Secunia.com

Q. Are any other browsers available with the compression technology?

A. There not exactly browsers available but there are few solutions but are not as efficient as Opera Mini. Also not all are free for download. We have chosen to be very generous to provide the browser free. And we concentrate to give good product.

Q. Anything else you would like to convey to Merinews.Com audience using this medium?

A. The most important thing is we believe as a company that there is only one web and we would like to make sure that everyone can access this web using any device. Using best of our products like Opera Desktop, Opera Mini and Opera Mobile.

You may download this highly efficient browser technology software from http://www.opera.com/download/

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