Rumors confirmed - Opera Software is sold to China

A few days there were rumors that the Norwegian company Opera Software is looking for a buyer. Today, rumors have become a reality - Opera Software has reached an agreement with the Chinese investment fund Golden Brick Silk Road to sell 100% of the shares of the Norwegian company for $ 1.2 billion. The corresponding announcement was published in the Oslo Børs exchange news .

The Chinese Investment Fund is a consortium of companies, which include Beijing Kunlun Tech Co. Ltd. (“Kunlun”), Qihoo 360 Software (Beijing) Co. Ltd. (“Qihoo”) and Yonglian (Yinchuan) Investment Co., Ltd. (“Yonglian”). Of these, two companies are most interesting - Kunlun and Qihoo. Kunlun specializes in mobile gaming, and Qihoo is the leader of the Chinese application market in the field of Internet security, including the mobile market. Given the very cautious attitude of Western consumers and companies to Chinese software, we can confidently assume that after Opera becomes a Chinese product, the browser will lose a significant proportion of users in the world.

The current director of Opera Software, Lars Boyulesen, believes that thanks to the sale agreement, Opera gets good prospects for further developing the market of developing countries and, as a result, the company's growth, and former director and co-founder of Opera, Jon von Tachner, is convinced that this step is logical the result of the erroneous strategy of the new management of the company , which will lead to the disappearance from the market of the main product of the company - well-known to all Russian users of the Opera browser, both desktop and mobile, including Opera Mini. Yon also noted that the search for a buyer began at Opera four years ago, after he left the company, and today it can be stated that Opera was not bought - Opera was sold, and these are different things. Actually, the gradual destruction of the Opera browser has led Yon to the decision to create a new browser - Vivaldi , which, according to the developers' plans, must incorporate all the best that was in the “pre-chrome” Opera.
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From my own life for almost 10 years, I actively participated in the development and popularization of the Opera browser, first as a volunteer, then as a full-time employee of the company, and for me selling Opera Software is also a very sad event. It was a great time, full of hope, new discoveries and communication with unique people. Just yesterday, we sat with Yon at his home in Reykjavik and recalled those times. But both of us agreed on one thing: in spite of the fact that sometimes sad events happen, life goes on and the experience gained in the heyday of Opera is not in vain - it is in demand in today's projects .