The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity - Dorothy Parker
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Opera co-founder resigns over disagreements
THE CO-FOUNDER of Opera Software has announced that he is leaving the company over disagreements with management.
Jon Stephenson Von Tetzchner helped form Opera in 1995 and was CEO of the company until 2010, when he stepped down to act as a strategic advisor. Now his long period with Opera is coming to a close due to differing opinions about where the company should go from here.
The announcement from Opera did not mention the views of von Tetzchner that were at odds with management, quoting only his praise for the company and the scope of Opera along with his comment that he is proud of what it has accomplished.
However, the letter he sent to Opera employees paints a very different picture. He said it became clear that the the board of directors and management did not share the same values as he, nor the same opinions on how to grow Opera.
He criticsed others in key positions in Opera as being "more quarterly focused", suggesting they might be focusing too much on the financial results every quarter instead of the bigger picture, which could enable Opera to grow into new areas and expand its current product base.
Despite the criticism, he said he strongly believes in the company and its staff, and thinks that its products make a difference. He said he will be following developments at Opera closely and will be rooting for everyone there.
Lars Boilesen, the current CEO of Opera praised von Tetzchner for his contribution to the company, saying he taught everyone a lot and helped push the company to where it is today.
Opera, famed for its web browsers, currently has 740 employees and a user base of 200 million, which it hopes to more than double to 500 million by 2013. While it's not clear exactly what differing views were the issue in von Tetzchner's resignation, this may be one of them. Perhaps he felt that there should be less focus on simply growing the user figures and more of an emphasis on bringing out new products that will help shape and change the industry.
Von Tetzchner will remain with Opera until the end of this month. He said he has new product ideas, but is not yet ready to reveal them. It's not clear if he will show these to Opera or take them with him to a new company. µ
Tags: Software
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Actually, Opera reaching 500 million does not necessarily mean that those numbers will be true for other browsers.
Remember, Opera Mini in particular is growing very fast in emerging markets (the most populous countries on the planet). 500 million isn't that far off, especially since Opera's audited financial reports show more than 200 million users currently.
Other browser forums do ban people for disagreeing with design decisions, if people disagree by being obnoxious and inflammatory. I frequent the MozillaZine forums, and they have zero tolerance for nonsense. They will ban you if you don't shut up and calm down.
200 million huh???
by that reckoning, safari will be 900 million, chrome will be 1200 million, and firefox 2000 million...
and NO, YOU prove the numbers...
the forums at TechCrunch show the real story..
At least other browser forums dont ban people for disagreeing with design decisions... they would just say "download this addon, it will do what you want..." :)
@Robert Carnegie
Opera has more than 200 million active users, as reported through audited financial reports to the market, investors and owners.
Remember, Opera is the dominant mobile browser!
You may want to educate yourself before commenting.
if a mere 200 million people use them. I suppose. Glances at imaginary "User No. 134,514,206 (Version 11.11)" badge.
Having said that, many many more people than that are using Opera program features, tabs and so forth. But they're using them in Internet Explorer or Firefox or Groan or SoSueMe or WebReplicaKit. I'm not sure if this is what you want to have to show for a decade and a half in the business, but the technology is in people's hands, under their fingers...
I used Opera in fairly early editions on Windows 3.1 with low memory, because you could. Now there's more memory, but so many more web pages, it balances out... And even with a keyboard-use disability, Opera's own old-school key controls (which you may have to re-enable after major upgrades) rock. It's like the WordStar learned interface, which I don't use so often now. What was WordStar... Google it or guess, children.