Opera co-founder Jon S von Tetzchner visited SA last week to take part in the annual Mobile Web in Africa Conference. ITWeb took the opportunity to ask him a few questions.
ITWeb: Can you tell us a bit about what you spoke about at the conference?
Von Tetzchner: I spoke about trying to get people online on mobile and dropping the idea of landline access. Less than 30% of the world has Internet access; 11% in Africa and SA - which is less than the average and much less than places like the US, where almost 80% have access because they have the infrastructure for it.
Whether you are accessing through mobile or accessing through a landline, you are accessing the same Internet. When mobile access first came about, there was an argument that there were two different Internets: the one accessed through a PC and the one accessed through WAP. Increasingly, people are starting to realise that what you can access on a PC you can also access on a phone. There is now one Internet.
ITWeb: What are the current trends you are seeing with regards to the mobile Web?
Von Tetzchner: Opera does a monthly report on the state of the mobile Web. What we have seen is that we have doubled our user base in last year, and are seeing over a billion page views per day and usage of the mobile Web is increasing.
We have also seen that people's Internet habits are mostly the same on mobile and PC. There are some differences, however. Mobile is more social. Social networking is, in fact, driving the use of mobile Internet, which makes sense, because the mobile phone is a personal device you can use to communicate with friends wherever you are.
Our statistics differ per country. We are seeing more page views here in Africa because more people use mobile to access the Internet. In some countries we are seeing crazy numbers, for example, Bangladesh, where there are more users with Opera Mini than there are people with Internet access in the official country statistics.
ITWeb: Do you see the increasing use of smartphone apps as a threat to the mobile Web?
Von Tetzchner: Not at all. I see it as going back in time and repeating things. Look at the desktop. At a recent conference we asked the audience how many people use more than five applications on a computer? Only 5%. It's about compatibility. An application locks you into the OS/platform - and in mobile there are so many. The Internet runs on top of that, there is only one Internet and you can access it from any device.
It is also about long-tail access - big players might create an application for their information, but what about the mom-and-pop shop? Who is going to create an application for them?
We must also bear in mind that 88% of the world does not have access to smartphones. The mobile Web caters for these people too.
ITWeb: Is Opera ready for HTML5?
Von Tetzchner: Opera was working with Apple and Mozilla on an improved HTML before HTML5 came into being. When it did, we moved our work over to HTML5 development, so we had a head start.
We have been very engaged in writing the standard, for both Opera Mobile and PC, and will integrate as much into Opera Mini as possible.
ITWeb: What is the difference between Opera Mobile and Opera Mini?
Von Tetzchner: Opera Mobile is exactly the same as the PC browser. Opera Mini compresses information server-side, but battles with highly interactive sites, such as those running advanced Ajax, though we are constantly working on improvements as we try to push innovation in new ways.
ITWeb: What does the future hold for Opera?
The Web is the biggest open source project in the world.
Jon S von Tetzchner, co-founder, Opera Software
Von Tetzchner: The Web is the biggest innovation in recent history, and it is still fairly new. We have seen a trend of movement from centralised, to de-centralised, to centralised. The last, of course, being the cloud. But we are already seeing the cloud as history, now we are expecting things to swing back to de-centralised.
Browsers are now in almost everything - from your stereo, to your television, to your fridge. This means everything is interconnected and can be programmed.
Opera is working on a project called “Unite”, which allows devices to communicate peer-to-peer. People can write apps that let devices talk to each other. An example of this in action would be arriving home with a camera full of new photographs. As you walked in the door, your camera would automatically sync with your computer, which would download the photos to a hard drive, and send them off into the cloud as backup, without you even having to tell it to. Another example is using your mobile phone at work to record a television programme you're missing at home.
ITWeb: And are the applications open source?
Von Tetzchner: Yes. The framework is owned by Opera, but the source code for the applications is available to anyone to use or modify, and developers are welcome to create their own. The Web is the biggest open source project in the world. People can also use any browser they wish on their devices to access the framework.
ITWeb: Since Opera is available free to users, what business models do you use to keep afloat?
Von Tetzchner: We want our browser to always remain free to the end-users, so with our three business models we deal directly with the service providers.
The first is the “feature” model. For example, we have recently integrated a Google search box into our browser. Google pays for the inclusion of that feature.
The second is the “software” model. Manufacturers pay to include our browser on their devices. For example, Sony's Bravia televisions.
The third model is cellphone operators. We create a special version of our browser for inclusion with their mobile devices, and they pay per unit sold.
ITWeb: Why are operators interested in including Opera on phones that already come with browsers?
Von Tetzchner: Opera Mini creates value, because data is compressed and, therefore, because it's cheap, people use more of it. It's a win-win situation for the operators because where people would have been avoiding surfing on their phones altogether, they now do it through Mini.
ITWeb: Looking at the latest Opera statistics on the top mobile Web sites, there is a noticeable lack of indigenous sites at the top. What do you think can be done about this?
Von Tetzchner: It is early days still. Over time localisation will become important as more people come online and local versions of sites are needed. We [Opera] may even take this task, the development of local sites, upon ourselves in the future.
Africa is already leading the way with payment - for example projects like M-Pesa - it may well leapfrog over other countries in terms of integrated local projects - such as online pizza delivery, ordering of groceries and other local services. Interesting things can come out of it.
There is great potential. In five years I believe the landscape will be very different. We expect a user base of 100 million, or maybe even a billion, here. There will be more mobiles than PCs one day.
ITWeb: Due to multiple SIM cards and mobile devices owned by individuals, some of the statistics for mobile penetration are said to be skewed...
Even though the statistics for mobile penetration are sometimes inflated, we can still see it is on the increase. Downloads of Opera have doubled since last year, and Opera Mini has 10% of the European market - more than both Safari and Chrome. This says something.
ITWeb: Is there anything you'd like to add that we haven't covered?
Von Tetzchner: I think we've covered a lot of ground. The most important point I want to make is that there is one Web and developers don't need to write for a specific platform in order to write for the Web.
As a result, we are seeing a boom in devices, such as televisions, that are connected to the Web. The latest televisions all have Internet access and soon every device in the home will be connected to the Internet in different ways.
There are two key crazes in the world at the moment. The first is 3DTV, the second is Internet TV. While the Internet-connected devices are high-end at the moment, soon they will be the norm.
Web technology is no longer just about the PC. As more and more devices become connected to the Web, more people globally will have access to Web technology.
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