Opera CEO von Tetzchner: Microsoft's IE8 'turn-off' is not enough

Scott Fulton, Betanews: Is the full solution then, in this case, only when Internet Explorer is available only separately, on an even keel with Firefox and Opera and Chrome and Safari?

Jon S. von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software: That would be the natural solution, that you choose the browsers evenly.

Betanews: You're saying that we require referees for this purpose, to make that happen?

Von Tetzchner: The referee is basically the competition authorities, right? So it's just like with the regulation in the financial system. I think for a while, people were saying we don't need any regulation. I don't think there's very many people out there today who would say we need no regulation. I think we can all discuss how much regulation we like, but I don't think anyone would like to have no regulation. And I think the same applies to competition in general in the open markets. You want to have some regulation, not too much regulation. You want the market to work, and there are certain rules and regulations on how that should work. I actually strongly believe that that's a good thing.

Betanews: Assuming such a regulative entity were in place -- perhaps the EC appoints one -- suppose at some future time a Linux distributor were to want to make a deal that placed Opera in a prominent position with its Linux distribution. Would that be unfair?

Von Tetzchner: I see the European Commission and all the research authorities as [already] being the referees. Now, you have to remember, any small Linux distribution is not in a monopolistic position. So there are certain rules that apply to companies that have gotten into a monopolistic position, and I don't think anyone would disagree that Microsoft has such a position in the operating system space. Then there are certain rules for companies that are in those positions with respect to tying, and that's to ensure that there's competition in the market.

Now, what a small Linux distribution chooses to do is a totally different story.

Betanews: So because a small Linux distribution is, by definition, small -- it is a minority player -- then if it were perceived by somebody to be tying anyone's Web browser in with that distribution, the referee could conclude, "Well, that tying is okay because this is a minority product?"

Von Tetzchner: Yes, it doesn't change the market dynamics. It doesn't mean suddenly that browser would be the most popular browser. These are different situation that are not comparable in any shape or form.

Opera on the desktop side is making some good progress, and I think that's important to get through. Last year we had 67% growth in our desktop market; the year before, we had 55% market growth in 2007. We have now more than 35 million active users on desktop. Revenue numbers can be seen from our sites.

So we've actually been making fairly good progress in the market. That doesn't change the fact that Microsoft, having not worked on their browsers for years, still maintains a very significant market share...and that's the thing that typically shows you there is something wrong. If you don't work on a browser for six years and you still maintain most of your market share, that shows something is wrong.

We as a company have been making great strides on desktop, and we continue to [do so], and we think we can do just fine. But we also believe that it's in the consumer interests to have easier choice in browsers, and we do believe that Internet Explorer has been keeping the Web from progressing positively. You may have seen, there are groups trying to get IE6 off of the Web because it's keeping the Web back, because it's just so very, very old -- and trying to get people to either move to IE7 or to competing browsers, because you would like to see the progress coming. But the fact that it took Microsoft so long to actually do anything, has actually kept the Web from progressing. And that's a bad thing; we would like to see the Web progress and be what it can be.

Betanews: Well, Opera earns so much of its revenue from the mobile space, by virtue of Opera Mini being as fully featured and adaptable to people's handsets. And I know that in that field, you also have a completely different kind of browser choice restriction -- that choice being made for, or on behalf of, users by carriers, sometimes by manufacturers. Don't you think that similarly restricts users' choices of browsers?

Von Tetzchner: No, because you don't have the same monopolies. There are a lot of different players in the field, so it's a different situation.

Betanews: So once again, because you don't have a dominant player there, the fact that a Vodafone or a T-Mobile or Orange can make a choice of which browser they prefer prominently on their models, that choice is even and fair and not made by virtue of any one player's monopoly position -- is that what you're saying?

Von Tetzchner: They can make those choices. Particularly, what is not happening is, you don't have any operator that has 80% of the market, and you don't have that operator pushing their own browser.

Representatives from the Mozilla Organization, Google, and Apple have also been invited to comment. A Mozilla representative declined comment to Betanews today, while a Google representative says its comment may be forthcoming. Apple has not responded.