So what is Opera's target audience now?
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alreadybanned last edited by
Interesting, drewfx. . They have a 40 percent revenue growth in 2014. (From 62 to 87 million in one year). Revenue for desktop, up 6 percent YoY.
Revenue for desktop is up, but not for the reason we might hope:
[quote]
In March 2014, the number of Desktop users was
approximately 51 million, down 7% versus 1Q13. Revenue
was up 6% in the 1Q14 compared to 1Q13, with lower
search revenue offset by higher licensing revenue,
including the licensing of the Rocket Optimizer
video/media optimization technology to a major Internet
company.
[/quote]Yep, posted similar stats myself only to be met with the usual rhetoric.
@lem729
I agree that mobile is where Opera is moving towards but the way they are going about it is all wrong in my opinion. They are essentially looking for new fish in a sea they never could swim in and doing so by running the risk of losing many of it's core users. Opera should realize their situation of being a niche browser and work towards appeasing their niche market while seeking other avenues for income generation. This of course would be a slower and more deliberate approach and one those who think in quarterly terms would not want to hear. Actually, Jon said something to that affect if I remember correctly. -
blackbird71 last edited by... I agree that mobile is where Opera is moving towards but the way they are going about it is all wrong in my opinion. They are essentially looking for new fish in a sea they never could swim in and doing so by running the risk of losing many of it's core users. Opera should realize their situation of being a niche browser and work towards appeasing their niche market while seeking other avenues for income generation. This of course would be a slower and more deliberate approach and one those who think in quarterly terms would not want to hear. Actually, Jon said something to that affect if I remember correctly.
Meaning no disrespect, but your, mine, Jon's, nor any number of other users' opinions simply don't matter regarding whether Opera is right or wrong in what they're going about doing. What matters is the opinion of that portion of the stockholders who vote to determine the composition of Opera ASA's board of directors, and the opinions of that board as interpreted by company management and its development staff. The stockholders are the ones with skin in the game, and they determine the course of the company via which directorate and management teams are put in place based on their votes... whether those stockholders correctly grasp the nuances of the "business" or not when voting. The rest of us are simply bystanders whose opinions are worth exactly the value of those electrons inconvenienced by posting them, whether those opinions turn out to be right or wrong.
The sad reality is that there are not a lot of determinative privileges and perks that come with using a free web browser, no matter who creates it or in what direction they carry the design.
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A Former User last edited by
@blackbird71 you exaggerate too much with that "pleasing stockholders" talk...
Some thoughts: if the stockholders want Opera to grow and get more revenue, they of course want Opera to get more users, and to have more users and keep them Opera must please them (the users). Also, some Opera employees are also stockholders...
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alreadybanned last edited by
... I agree that mobile is where Opera is moving towards but the way they are going about it is all wrong in my opinion. They are essentially looking for new fish in a sea they never could swim in and doing so by running the risk of losing many of it's core users. Opera should realize their situation of being a niche browser and work towards appeasing their niche market while seeking other avenues for income generation. This of course would be a slower and more deliberate approach and one those who think in quarterly terms would not want to hear. Actually, Jon said something to that affect if I remember correctly.
Meaning no disrespect, but your, mine, Jon's, nor any number of other users' opinions simply don't matter regarding whether Opera is right or wrong in what they're going about doing. What matters is the opinion of that portion of the stockholders who vote to determine the composition of Opera ASA's board of directors, and the opinions of that board as interpreted by company management and its development staff. The stockholders are the ones with skin in the game, and they determine the course of the company via which directorate and management teams are put in place based on their votes... whether those stockholders correctly grasp the nuances of the "business" or not when voting. The rest of us are simply bystanders whose opinions are worth exactly the value of those electrons inconvenienced by posting them, whether those opinions turn out to be right or wrong.
The sad reality is that there are not a lot of determinative privileges and perks that come with using a free web browser, no matter who creates it or in what direction they carry the design.None taken, I agree with you.
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lem729 last edited by
you exaggerate too much with that "pleasing stockholders" talk...
Some thoughts: if the stockholders want Opera to grow and get more revenue, they of course want Opera to get more users, and to have more users and keep them Opera must please them (the users). Also, some Opera employees are also stockholders...I agree. No reason to think Opera doesn't want to please users. They also want to gain new users. And they care about what people think of their product. Now I did like the dark sweep of that line, blackbird71 "The rest of us are simply bystanders whose opinions are worth exactly the value of those electrons inconvenienced by posting them, whether those opinions turn out to be right or wrong," but it's not quite altogether
A company that took that position would be a pretty poor company. Opera obviously has to balance existing users, the cost to please them, prospective users, the tack to take to gain them, and maybe they have ideas about their product too, because one can care about the "art" of a product, the rightness of it, the consumer need that they can fill, even their reputation as an innovative company, etc. And they may be looking 1, 2, 3 years down the road too. Or more. And just because they're not choosing in the same way you would doesn't mean they're not doing all of that. It's rather a fine balance. -
blackbird71 last edited by
@blackbird71 you exaggerate too much with that "pleasing stockholders" talk...
Some thoughts: if the stockholders want Opera to grow and get more revenue, they of course want Opera to get more users, and to have more users and keep them Opera must please them (the users). Also, some Opera employees are also stockholders...Well, we disagree. I think it's not an exaggeration. If the majority of voting stockholders aren't happy with where a company is headed, they can (and generally will) elect a different board having a different set of opinions on the direction of the company. That, of course, is not the same thing as saying the stockholders have in detail set the current course of the company's products... but it means that no publicly-held company can for very long persist in a direction that a majority of its stockholders do not support. In that sense, because they own the company, their opinion is determinative and meaningful. Usually, their opinion revolves around how well the company is doing financially, rather than necessarily just what the company happens to be doing in particular product lines (unless the products have raised notable or embarrassing controversy).
All the rest of us who are not stockholders are free, certainly, to voice our opinions. But those opinions have no direct authority and individually carry little if any weight, particularly in the case of a "free" product. A company can readily elect to trade one set of customers for another with its product directions, particularly if they feel that such a change will prosper their operation, regardless of the previous-customer opinions that result.
My point is that specific user opinions (criticisms or support) about the redesigned Opera carry no intrinsic weight of themselves, particularly if the company is intent on redirecting its product lines toward another, more profitable user base demographic. What will ultimately carry weight are the aggregate financials that result from the collective of user opinions out in the marketplace. A wise company will sift the specific user opinions it gets in order to obtain hints about what that ultimate marketplace opinion of their efforts might be, but each individual opinion itself carries little or no intrinsic authority or weight.
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lem729 last edited by
What will ultimately carry weight are the aggregate financials that result from the collective of user opinions out in the marketplace. A wise company will sift the specific user opinions it gets in order to obtain hints about what that ultimate marketplace opinion of their efforts might be, but each individual opinion itself carries little or no intrinsic authority or weight>
All the individual opinions added together form a composite picture. But the board is looking not just at current opinion, but what it believes the market will be further down the road. Nothing about Opera's history, or its most recent financial report suggests a company that doesn't know what it's doing. In fiscal year 2014, they had a revenue growth of forty percent. They are involved in a wide range of activities suggestive of an innovative and vital company. Much of the criticism of Opera's competence come from users with a self-interest in the other direction.
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alreadybanned last edited by
All the individual opinions added together form a composite picture. But the board is looking not just at current opinion, but what it believes the market will be further down the road. Nothing about Opera's history, or its most recent financial report suggests a company that doesn't know what it's doing. In fiscal year 2014, they had a revenue growth of forty percent. They are involved in a wide range of activities suggestive of an innovative and vital company. Much of the criticism of Opera's competence come from users with a self-interest in the other direction.
Huh? There is no possible way to have calculated a fiscal year that is only 5 months old. They have released only first quarter numbers for 2014(Apr. 30) which are down from Q4 2013. The rise that they had enjoyed was in part due to the Skyfire deal in June and selling 8 million shares. Their stock has been falling shortly after the start of the year though. None of which has anything to do with the current success or failure of the desktop variation of the browser. The opinions expressed however are in direct relation to the choices the company has made regarding the browser and not any other business venture.
http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/OPERA:NO
http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/charts/charts.asp?ticker=OPERA:NO
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lem729 last edited by
Sorry, the hand was quicker than my mind. I meant to say Revenue growth of 40 percent in the first quarter of FY 2014. If you compare first quarter of 2014 (87 million) to first quarter 2013 (61) million, you get some idea of an improving revenue situation. The financial results, as well as the numerous other endeavors discussed in their Quarterly Report for the first quarter of 2014, evidence a vital, energetic company, one seemingly on a well thought out track. On stocks, I see from your link, alreadybanned, Opera's 1 year run -- a 66 percent rise. Wow. Okay, even if it was higher than that, but has settled back a bit, that's quite a rise -- and though you suggest it's not related to desktop Opera, but Skyfire (and cloud solution technology), it cannot but reflect well on the decision-making of Opera, the company. For sure now, there has been, and still is, some vocal criticism of their change from the Presto engine to Bing for Desktop Opera, but that opposition (as I noted in my last post) comes from those who have a huge self-interest in features of the old Opera, lost under the Bing browser, at least for the time being. So the passion of the arguments, which go so far as to suggest that Opera is incompetent or has made a bad business decision, can perhaps be taken with the proverbial "grain of salt."
