Opera Mini won an award from GetJar in 2010

Independent application store GetJar has banned one of the most popular apps it offers – the Opera Mini mobile browser – because of Opera’s decision to launch its own app store. In a letter expressing regret to its developer community, GetJar described the app as one of its “longtime favourites”, saying it had been downloaded from the store 30 million times. The firm said that it had been in negotiation with Opera for some time in a bid to avoid having to exclude the browser application.

Opera launched its Opera Mobile Store on March 8, having developed it in partnership with white label app store player Appia. “The launch of the Opera Mobile Store supports Opera’s core belief in an open, cross-platform mobile Internet experience by providing Opera users with an integrated storefront of mobile applications,” said Mahi de Silva, EVP, Consumer Mobile, Opera Software. “Our partnership with Appia delivers to all Opera Mobile and Opera Mini users easy access to a wide variety of great content, on any device, all over the world.”

This was too much for Getjar, which proceeded to implement the ban. “Although we don’t have any issue with this in principle,” the firm said of Opera’s move, “in practice it means that consumers might start using this app store instead of visiting GetJar to get their favourite apps.”

Quite how the practice differs from the principle isn’t clear, and yet GetJar was at pains to stress that it welcomes competition. “We’re happy to go head to head with any other app store,” the firm said, explaining its decision to ban Opera Mini because it: “robs GetJar of traffic and therefore of the advertising necessary to keep our service free for the more than 25 million consumers that use GetJar.”

But the fact that all applications available from GetJar are free, has led some observers to question the sense of its decision to ban Opera for launching a store that offers paid-for applications.

“Why would a freemium app store GetJar ban Opera coz of its new premium app store? GetJar’s users aren’t people who would download paid apps,” tweeted Simon Buckingham, CEO of another independent app store, Appitalism.

Get more related content in the Billing Zone

There were bonus benefits for lesser known mobile browsers as GetJar recommended alternatives to Opera’s product. Bitstream Bold, Squace and UC Web Browser all enjoyed a moment’s promotion. How long this will last remains to be seen, with GetJar saying it hopes to resolve the dispute with Opera in the future. The reactions of other app stores that feature Opera will be interesting to watch.

November 1 marked the first day of operation at Opera’s Icelandic data centre, known as Thor

Norwegian software firm Opera, which develops the world’s most popular mobile browser, has opened a datacentre in Iceland to help it compress and manage all the web traffic from its millions of users.

November 1 marked the first day of operation at Opera’s Icelandic data centre, known as Thor, which will compress web traffic for more than 71 million monthly users of Opera Mini. These users view more than 36.9 billion pages per month, which translates into more than 4.9PB of data – 245 times the size of the US Library of Congress.

The Opera Mini technology, which compresses web traffic on the fly, requires data centres to handle all the processing, which in turn equals massive requirements for power and cooling. Opera said the stable supply of geothermal power and natural cooling in Iceland make for the ideal location of a data centre.

Opera Mini compresses data by up to 90 per cent before sending it to the phone, resulting in more rapid page loading and more web per MB for the end user, the company said.

The Opera browser has been submitted to the iPhone App Store

The most successful browser in the mobile market, Opera Mini, may be making its way onto the iPhone in the near future. On Tuesday, Opera Mini for iPhone was officially submitted to the Apple iPhone App store for approval.

After showing a sneak peek of the browser in Barcelona in February, the Norwegian firm has now made a video available to the general public, showing off Opera Mini’s “fast like a rocket” capabilities, billed as six times faster than Safari on the iPhone.

“Due to server-side rendering, Opera Mini compresses data by up to 90 per cent before sending it to the phone, resulting in rapid page loading and more web per MB for the end user,” the company said. “Those familiar with iPhone roaming charges will relish Opera Mini’s ability to deliver more for less, giving users the web they want quickly, without, the high costs.”

Ah, now here’s the catch. The video does indeed make Opera Mini look blazingly fast, but this server side compression technology is likely based on Opera Turbo – a box that Opera sells to operators to stick on their networks to improve the mobile web experience. So what happens if the operator in question doesn’t have the box installed? Will users get a slower experience?

Saying that, server side compression is quite popular among mobile operators, but is one implementation of the technology compatible with all browsers? Still, Opera Mobile is already installed on more than 50 million handsets worldwide, so it’s a safe bet that a good number of carriers use Opera Turbo.

Opera buys mobile advertising platform AdMarvel

It certainly looks like a good time to be in the mobile advertising business – companies are being snapped up like hot cakes. On Wednesday, mobile browser king Opera acquired AdMarvel for a reported $8m in cash and the promise of a further $15m if targets are met.

AdMarvel, based in California, is a startup firm running a mobile advertising ecosystem with service offerings including mobile web, WAP, SMS and in application advertising.

Opera intends to combine AdMarvel’s monetisation and analytics platform with the Opera browser and widget platform to offer advertising options to mobile operators and content partners on any Java capable handset including Symbian, BlackBerry, Palm, Windows Mobile and various flavours of Linux.

“In our fast-growing industry, mobile advertising represents an interesting long-term revenue opportunity. Every month, nearly 50 million people access the web using Opera on their mobile phones,” said Lars Boilesen, CEO of Opera.

Earlier this month Apple acquired mobile advertising firm Quattro Wireless for somewhere between $250m and $275m, perhaps paving the way for Apple to offer an advertising platform to its App Store and iPhone customers.

While late last year, Google upped its game in the mobile space with the purchase of AdMob for $750m. Google and AdMob currently specialise in different areas, with Google’s focus on mobile search ads, while AdMob’s focus is mobile display ads and in-application ads.

Opera Mini tops 25 mil. downloads

Independent app store GetJar said this week that the world’s most popular mobile web browser, Opera Mini, has been downloaded more than 25 million times from its store. This makes Opera Mini the most downloaded app ever from any open app store to date, GetJar claims.

The white label app store said the latest version of Opera Mini (v4.2) has received nearly 7.5 million downloads since the beginning of 2009 and remains one of GetJar’s top five most downloaded applications globally. GetJar thinks the secret to the browser’s success is its cross platform attraction for consumers using Java, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices.

Telecoms.com recently profiled both Jon von Tetzchner, CEO of Opera Software and Ilja Laurs, founder and CEO of GetJar in its list of 40 movers and shakers in the mobile market. GetJar is an interesting case  in the app store world – as of May 2009, the firm boasted a portfolio of 46,000 mobile games and apps and serves 35 million downloads per month through its own site and its network of partners, including carriers such as Vodafone, and vendors like Research In Motion. The company offers a global distribution and payment platform to a base of 350,000 developers, from one-man shops to established brands like Google, Microsoft and Facebook.

View telecoms.com’s profiles on Jon von Tetzchner, CEO of Opera, and  Ilja Laurs, founder and CEO of GetJar in the Top 40 to Watch

The white label app store caters to Java-based devices and targets Symbian, Windows Mobile, iPhone, Palm, BlackBerry, and Flash Lite-compatible phones. Most recently GetJar has announced partnerships with Virgin Mobile France, 3UK and Sony Ericsson.

Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera

Icelander Jon von Tetzchner is the CEO of Opera Software, a company notable for its development of a successful web browser that’s not called Internet Explorer or FireFox.

Opera started in 1994 as a research project inside Norwegian telco Telenor but was abandoned and spun off as a separate company a year later.

As well as going up against web browser giant Microsoft on its home turf of the desktop space, Tetzchner spotted a great opportunity in the mobile devices and consumer electronics spaces, which promptly became a focus of Opera’s development.

Today, the world’s most popular mobile web browser counts over 20 million users and is available for any Java capable handset including Symbian, BlackBerry, Palm, Windows Mobile and various flavours of Linux.

Tetzchner is also known for his humour and marketing acumen. In 2005 he proclaimed that if the download numbers of Opera 8 reached one million within four days, he would swim across the Atlantic Ocean from Norway to the US. The million was reached and less than a week later the Opera site catalogued the Atlantic swim attempt, and its prompt failure, with plenty of photos.

Opera retakes lead in mobile browser wars

Opera has reclaimed the lead as the world’s most popular mobile browser, according to statistics released Wednesday.

The Opera web browser overtook the iPhone in May, winning 24.6 per cent of the global mobile browser market, compared to the iPhone’s 22.3 per cent. Opera lost its mobile crown to Safari on the iPhone in February 2009, but seems to have made something of a comeback.

But Apple is still a dominant force. If the iPod Touch, which has web access via wifi, is factored in with its 14.9 per cent share of the global mobile browser market, Apple becomes the clear winner once again, according to the figures provided by website traffic analysis firm StatCounter.

Nokia retains third place with 17.9 per cent of the global mobile browser market, followed at some distance by RIM’s BlackBerry with 6.92 per cent of the market.

“An interesting finding is that BlackBerry has steadily increased market share from 4.9 per cent in January to 6.9 per cent in May. Despite the global recession it looks as if executives are holding on to their BlackBerries,” said Aodhan Cullen, CEO and founder of StatCounter.

So far this year, Android has languished at the bottom of the table, with just 1.86 per cent of the market.

It’s not a good look having no ribs, so the Informer wags his finger in wearily amused frustration at the merry pranksters who saw fit to flood his inbox with news-based fake-japery. Fortunately the Informer was able to remove his shattered ribcage with ease, because his sides had split as well.

So, here we have mobile browser specialist Opera releasing the news that it has developed software allowing users to control their browser using only facial gestures. “Face Gestures makes surfing the Web as easy as smiling, batting an eyelash or flaring a nostril,” corpsed the press release. Brilliant. Not so funny, though, if you happen to be one of those poor people afflicted by violent facial spasms. Then all it makes you think is how, if you had it, you’d be forever navigating your way to the wrong page, compounding your existing woes. No, those people aren’t laughing – and even if they were, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell.

Then we had Qualcomm punting out a video in which it claimed to have developed a chimera to outrage the laws of nature. An un-godly cross between a pigeon and a wolf in which the firm had embedded a tiny base station, these could, in sufficient numbers, create an organic, airborne network. A network that delivers crappy service literally as well as figuratively. Well, the Informer had already dashed off a letter to his MEP complaining about this unethical pursuit of coverage and capacity improvement when he realised that it was all an elaborate spoof. It was the shark falcon that made the Informer see that Qualcomm was just ripping off the central theme of Disney’s short-lived 1985 animation series The Wuzzles.

And finally there was secretive proprietary broadband network provider XG Technology, which announced that it had turned a profit for 2008, despite the economic downturn. XG got this in early, on March 31^st, which is a popular move among the April Foolers these days. Still, it was one of the better ones this year, and… Eh? Oh – oh, I see.

My mistake; apparently this one’s true.

XG, the firm said, clocked an operating profit of $7.7m in 2008, up from a $6.2m loss in 2007. Net profit was $2m. The improvement is thanks largely to the sale of 327 of its bespoke low-power, long range, non-pigeon-based broadband base stations, which generated revenues of $16.4m. Profit there may be but prices look to have taken a hit, as the firm said in September when it announced the deal that it would ship 1,000 base stations to customer Tresco International at a cost of $75m.

As well as being a customer, Tresco is also a shareholder in XG, which claims its technology, when commercially launched, “will defy all other [mobile communications systems] on the market”. One of the definitions of the verb ‘defy’, the Informer noted after consulting his dictionary, is: ‘To elude, especially in a baffling way’. Interesting.

As well as being April Fool’s day this week it was also the beginning of the G20 summit, being held in London due to the UK’s current presidency of the organisation. The Informer was personally inconvenienced by this when his bicycle ride to work was interrupted by Barack Obama’s motorcade leaving Downing Street. Watching this go by was a bit like waiting for the back end of the Imperial Star Destroyer to appear at the beginning of Star Wars Episode IV.

The G20, as you may know, is a grouping of the world’s most powerful countries. This week their heads of state and top finance bods are meeting in London for some fine dining and to try and solve the current economic crisis. It is a truth universally acknowledged, after all, that consuming the mashed liver of a force-fed goose does wonders for one’s capacity for strategic economic thought.

As you may also know, wherever representatives of the world’s most powerful economies gather, so to do a ragtag bunch of angry protesters, bent on disrupting the meetings in a bid to generate greater awareness of the causes they support. They get dressed up in their funny costumes, band together and shout angrily about what’s most important to them, usually to very little effect. Sometimes they break a window or two, if goaded on by a pack of desperate photographers.

Sample chants from this week’s rallies include: “Stop the war!”, “Hang a banker!”, “Shame on you!”, and “We want a stable, predictable and minimally intrusive regulatory environment!”

One of these, you will have noticed, differs markedly from the other three. This is because, in among all the dreadlocked anarchists, the Spiderman-suited Fathers for Justice daredevils and the benign dopers simply enjoying the opportunity to smoke a bit of weed in public, were 24 mobile operators and vendors, drenched uncharacteristically in patchouli oil, bearing aloft special interest placards of their own.

Ok, so they weren’t actually there. But they did use the G20 summit to send a letter – a letter, no less – to the summit attendees, asking them to dish out lots of tasty spectrum for the future and get those pesky regulators off their backs. The signatories to this letter, included here because of the boost they give this edition of A Week in Wireless’s company mention statistics, were as follows:

Ben Verwaayen, CEO, Alcatel Lucent, Daniel Hajj Aboumrad, CEO, America Movil, Ralph de la Vega, CEO, AT&T Mobile, Sunil Bharti Mittal, CEO, Bharti Enterprises, René Obermann, CEO, Deutsche Telekom, Carl-Henric Svanberg, CEO, Ericsson, Robert Conway, CEO, GSMA, Phuthuma Nhleko, CEO, MTN Group, Ryuji Yamada, CEO, NTT DoCoMo, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, CEO, Nokia, Simon Beresford-Wylie, CEO, Nokia Siemens Networks, Olaf Swantee, CEO, Orange Group…

…pause for breath…

…Naguib Sawiris, CEO, Orascom, Masayoshi Son, CEO, Softbank Mobile, Man Won Jung, CEO, SKT Group, Sol Trujillo, CEO Telstra, Franco Bernabe, CEO, Telecom Italia Group, Cesar Alierta, CEO Telefonica Group, Boris Nemsic, CEO Telekom Austria Group (now at Vimpelcom, of course), Jon Fredrick Basksaas, CEO Telenor Group, Lars Nyberg, CEO TeliaSonera, Jamal Ibrahim, CEO TMI, Alexander Izosimov, CEO Vimpelcom, Vittorio Colao, CEO Vodafone Group and Saad Al Barrak, CEO Zain Group.

“The deployment of mobile broadband could create 25 million jobs around the globe and be financed by private capital,” the letter said. “This boost to the global economy at this critical time will also enable widespread Internet access, stimulating significant productivity enhancements and social benefits.”

It went on: “The business case for mobile broadband is highly dependent on regulatory policies. In recent times we have experienced a trend of increasing regulatory intervention, often where this is not appropriate…We therefore ask the G20 leaders to consider the vital contribution that mobile technology can make to global economic recovery and recognize the importance of these key enabling actions by government. The mobile industry stands ready to support the efforts of governments to stimulate sustainable economic recovery.”

Whether or not this will work remains to be seen. If not, perhaps they’ll have to make Viviane Reding an offer she can’t refuse. You have to wonder, though, what response a group of 24 user groups would get if they sent a letter to GSMA HQ, demanding lower pricing all round.

The big problem for this group of mobile agitators, though, is the absence of the ‘or else’ clause in their letter. They rightly point out that the industry is set to make huge investment over the coming years. But if their demands aren’t met, that investment will still be made. And, let’s face it, they’re not about to smash any windows to make their point. Not that this, as most modern protests seem to prove, would work anyway.

In other alliance-based news, it was announced this week that Verizon Wireless is to join with China Mobile, Softbank and Vodafone in the three carriers’ giant app store project, the Joint Innovation Lab (JIL), established just over a year ago. Specifically designed to take the whole widget/app experience mass market – more than achievable given the almost one billion customers to which the four carriers can lay collective claim – the JIL is the Walmart of app store projects.

Later this year, JIL plans to launch a range of developer tools, including a common mobile widget spec, developer kits and an online repository, distribution and payment mechanism enabling developers to get their product in front of customers from 70 countries across four continents.

On a similar theme the Symbian Foundation used the CTIA show in Las Vegas this week to launch its beta site test programme, claiming a ‘”significant milestone” in the wider Foundation project. The site, it says here, has a full developer offering, including platform release information, council charters, wikis, forums and access to the SDK, code repository, tools, documentation, wiki, bugtracker and forums.

And in another paragraph containing the word ‘beta’, Nokia’s head of sales, Anssi Vanjoki, likened aspiring 4G technology WiMAX to the Betamax video standard which lost the video format battle to VHS (read LTE) in the 1980s. Quoted in the FT this week, Vanjoki said: “I don’t think the future is very promising [for WiMax]. This is a classic example of industry standards clashing, and somebody comes out as the winner and somebody has to lose. Betamax was there for a long time, but VHS dominated the market. I see exactly the same thing happening here.”

Betamax, Sony’s video format, traded on the high quality of its recordings. VHS, meanwhile, won out because it enabled users to record for longer periods. It had a capacity advantage, so to speak. In order for LTE to have its capacity advantage, though, the right amount of spectrum is needed.

One alternative theory as to what caused the demise of Betamax is a giant asteroid colliding with the Earth. Oh, no, hang on, that was the dinosaurs. No, the other theory about Betamax is that it failed because Sony was reluctant to allow its standard to be used for the distribution of naughty films (project Mustn’t Grumble?). Adult content drives all new media, of course, so what Vanjoki could be saying is that the success of LTE will be because of the high volumes of mucky stuff that will be flying across the airwaves. Who knows…

In other WiMAX news, Japanese vendor NEC wants everybody to know that it has been awarded the WiMAX Forum Certified seal of approval for its 3.5GHz base station, named PASOWINGS.

And finally, the Informer would like to draw your attention to his lovely home, www.telecoms.com, which has been given a ground-up makeover and is looking and feeling very tasty indeed. Go there, now! You’ll be able to read stories about Ovi and RIM that didn’t make it into this edition of A Week in Wireless and do all sorts of fun stuff.

Take care

The Informer