Opera layoffs behind: Chop will seek to change the gambling mobile internet

Recently, the Norwegian browser company Opera CEO Lars Boilsen announced that the company has significantly reduced the core technology development team of employees, nearly hundreds of core staff from opera left.

The details of the job cuts, which were announced by opera in the Q4 Quarterly report in 2012, showed that opera's announcement of layoffs was due to a "restructuring" of the company, with a total of 91 layoffs and a reduction in the number of employees from the original 931 to 840. The "reorganization" of the Q4 quarterly cost has reached 7.8 million U.S. dollars. About half of the 90 people who have left the core technology team are developers.

Before that, there was news that opera would replace the current core browser engine with WebKit. The WebKit engine has been used in Google Chrome and Apple Safari browsers. Opera's move means that all other browsers will use the WebKit engine, with the exception of Microsoft and Firefox.

Opera previously announced that the company's active users have reached 300 million, and spent $155 million to acquire mobile video optimization experts, mobile browser developer Skyfire. In addition, opera recently released a new browser ice. This mobile browser discards all keystrokes, menus, and labels and relies entirely on touch gestures. Ice was previously opera's only one by one browser using the WebKit engine.

From Opera's recent series of moves, layoffs, replacement of the core browser engine, release of the new browser ice and acquisition of Skyfire, it is not hard to guess that opera is brewing a shift toward the mobile end. These actions could be a danger to the Norwegian PC Terminal Browser: Adjust the layout of the mobile internet ahead of the era of mobile interconnection, and focus on the future to achieve more stable development.

Under the trend of mobile Internet, there are some internet giants, not only opera, but also the mobile internet companies that keep pace with mobile.

Internet giant Microsoft released last year to support PCs, tablets and mobile phones and other hardware operating system Windows 8, multi-screen integration, the advantages of the PC end of the smooth extension to the mobile end; Baidu vigorously advocated wolf culture, the second revolution launched Baidu Map, Baidu Video, Baidu side of the app, vigorously layout mobile end; Tencent, relying on rapid growth of micro-letter, aiming at mobile voice, two-dimensional code, etc., has been the first mobile internet "ticket."

Burn your bridges, self-revolution, and then Nirvana. Opera is doing the same, and its mobile strategy is proceeding in a methodical manner. "For the next year, most of opera's browsers will turn to WebKit engines," he said. Opera CEO Lars Boilsen has said, "At present, we are in the next phase of development, in the smartphone market to obtain a greater share." ”

After Opera's transformation is complete, 55% mobile users will use WebKit based browsers. After adopting the WebKit engine, opera will be able to focus on developing a unique user experience, not the basic technology.

"The number of engineers employed in the company's smartphone, tablet and desktop browser products sector has been at its all-time high for 18 years," Boilesen said. The company expects its employee size to reach its all-time high this year. ”

Niu Network thinks, opera This change will develop how, is to borrow webkit Dongfeng development and growth, in the rapid changes in the Internet industry occupy a place, or increasingly mediocre still remains to be seen. In addition, opera's own change for other internet industry sounded the alarm, the technology industry is unpredictable, the internet industry should always be vigilant to respond to industry changes.