Oslo, Norway – March 9, 2004
Opera Software today announced the details of its new version 7 for Smartphones and PDAs.The new version is already shipping on Kyocera’s new ITRON-based phone in Asia, announced last week.Deployments based on the Symbian and Linux operating systems will soon be announced.
Built on the same core as Opera’s desktop browser, Opera 7 makes availablethe leading “Presto” desktop core engine for the first time in mobiledevices. By using Presto, Opera 7 strongly differentiates itself from anyother mobile browsers. Opera 7 has a dynamic rendering engine fullycapable of supporting W3C’s Document Object Model (DOM),providing a platform- and language-neutral interface that allows programs and scriptsto dynamically access and update the content, structure and style ofdocuments. Presto also supports Street HTML like no other mobile browser.Street HTML is the term for the non-standard code that makes up the “real”Web, authored by developers with unintended and intended bugs to look goodin the non-standard-compliant Microsoft Internet Explorer desktop browser.Other highlights in Opera 7 for Smartphones include enhanced support forJavaScript, support for BiDi (bi-directional text, such asArabic and Hebrew), more modularity and more ease to port to new operating systems.
“Opera 7 forms the basis of the Opera Platform, our initiative to provideoperators and handset manufacturers with a tool that brings data services,brand recognition and wins customer loyalty by streaming data through thephone’s user interface,” says Hakon Lie, CTO, Opera Software ASA. “OperaPlatform is built upon support for open standards like DOM and ECMAScript,standards where Opera’s support is unmatched in the mobile browser world.Having DOM support in a mobile browser secures that these devices can nowdisplay the same dynamic Webpages that have been available on desktop PCs.With Opera’s superior standards support there is no need to separate intoa mobile and desktop Web, the one available Web with its abundance ofcontent looks great on any kind of device using Opera 7.”