Las Vegas, NV – Nov. 17, 2003
One year after announcing the technology breakthrough that made it possibleto bring the full Internet into the pockets of millions of users, Opera has provedover the last few weeks that its vision is fast becoming a reality. Opera is nowshipping with major handset manufacturers, cementing Opera’s vision of full Internet surfing as the best option to raise revenues for operators. With users wanting a full Internet experience when on the move, Opera is now positioned asalmost a standard requirement for handset manufacturers and operators.
With Small-Screen Rendering â„¢ (SSR)Opera Software finally cracked the screen size problem that plagued and halted the full-scale implementation of using advanced browsers on small mobile devices. By reformatting existing Internet sites to fit on small screens, the full Internet for the first time became a useful option on mobile devices. Before SSR, the favorite solution to the problem of scaling Web pages was to zoom or scroll horizontally, resulting in a horrible Internet experience for users. Alternatively, the industry experimented with new formats like the wireless application protocol (WAP) or – in Japan – iMode. The former largely proved a failure because of the technology’s inherent limitations and the lack of available content, with most Web sites not wanting to support several different formats. While iMode has managed to avoid some of WAP’s content problem, users still suffer from the lack of access to the full Internet and their favorite sites. Opera’s Small-Screen Rendering is now a driving force in making WAP and iMode redundant technologies.
Opera’s SSR breakthrough was met with incredible enthusiasm from the telecom industry, and all the work completed over the year since the announcement has now borne fruit into several announced and unannounced business deals.
The Opera browser is going mainstream in the mobile mass market. Nokia has unveiled the new 6600 and 7700 devices, both using Opera’s browser. Other manufacturers around the world are also active. The American manufacturer Motorola has included Opera on the A920, which is also Opera’s first UMTS deployment. In Asia, Taiwan’s BenQ have included Opera on their upcoming P30 smartphone, scheduled for release in Q1 2004, and Opera is working closely with Kyocera in Japan for the Chinese and Japanese market. Also in Europe, Sendo now includes Opera on their “Sendo X” smartphone. Sony Ericsson licensed Opera for the smash-hit P800 smart phone, and Opera is now included as an option on their follow-up P900 device.
“WAP has proved largely a failure – there is simply not enough content available to make it attractive for users,” says Jon S. von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software ASA. “When it’s possible to get full Web access with the abundance of content already available, users are not satisfied by a concept that just offers access to limited XHTML. Eventually every mobile handset will be using a browser that can handle the lastest in HTML, DOM, and scripts. You simply cannot beat the ease of use, abundance of available content and the economies of scale that the full Web represents.”
The following are links to some handset manufacturer’s Web pages with information on the recently released products that includes Opera:
Opera for your device
For more information about Opera’s SSR technology or to contact Opera Software ASA about including Opera on your device, please see our smartphone pages.
SSR for Web authors
Designers interested in learning more about designing style sheets targeted for handheld devices can visit our page aboutWeb page authoring for SSR.
Standards support
Opera supports the latest standards including HTML 4.01,ECMA-262 2nd and 3rd ed., JavaScript 1.5, XHTML 1.0/1.1,XHTML Basic, XHTML MP, CSS 1 and 2, CSS MP, WML 1.3, WCSS,cHTML, HTTP 1.0 and 1.1, SSL 3/TLS 1.0and Unicode (UTF-16).