Oslo, Norway – October 20, 2005
Opera Software, world leader in cross-platformbrowser technologies, today released the beta version of the Opera Miniâ„¢ Webbrowser, free of charge, in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. Opera Miniâ„¢ is aJava-based (J2ME) Web browser that enables full Web access on the majority of today’slow- and mid-range phones that are normally incapable of running a full Web browser.With Opera Miniâ„¢, you can start surfing the Web on the handset you have today.
Opera Miniâ„¢ allows users to access the full Web on the 700+ million Java-enabledmobile phones around the world. That includes the vast majority of today’s WAP-enabled phones. Instead of requiring the phone to process Web pages, it uses a remoteserver to pre-process the page before sending it to the phone.
“Opera Miniâ„¢ is simple to use, free, and easily installed on nearly all mobilephones,” says Jon S. von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software. “With Opera Miniâ„¢ we arereally bringing mobile Internet browsing into the mainstream by opening up for mobileInternet access for everyone.”
The Opera Miniâ„¢ browser was introduced as a pilot project in Norway on August 10,2005, to spearhead Norwegian TV station TV2’s mobile services. Following the successin Norway, Opera Software is now extending the availibility of Opera Miniâ„¢ toinclude all the Scandinavian countries as a first step towards full global launch.
Opera offers full customization of Opera Miniâ„¢ to companies, for exampleoperators, broadcasters, mobile content providers, handset manufacturers and theInternet industry. With Opera Miniâ„¢ operators can dramatically increase theaverage revenue per user (ARPU) across their entire customer base by stimulating theusage of compelling mobile Web services; Mobile content providers can reach the massmarket quickly and affordably without having to worry about operator requirements;and handset manufacturers can differentiate their low- and midrange phones to makethem more attractive to operators and end-users.
Availability
Opera Miniâ„¢ is currently available for download at http://mini.opera.com/ , forusers in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. A full global launch is planned soon.Opera Software also offers Opera Miniâ„¢ to operators and companies that want afully customizable and branded Web browser included in their offerings to customers.
For more information about Opera Miniâ„¢, visit http://www.opera.com/mini/.