Fixed Mobile Convergence

During next week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Opera Software will unveil a version of its famed Opera Mini Internet browser that is designed specifically for the iPad, according to a release. By launching its new offering, Opera will join Safari and Skyfire (News - Alert) as one of the three leading developers of tablet-optimized Web browsers. 

The Norway-based firm also announced that it will be introducing fresh versions of its Opera Mini browser for iPhone, Android (News - Alert), J2ME, BlackBerry and Symbian platforms while at the conference. Updated editions of Opera Mobile for Symbian and Android will also be unveiled. For Opera, the decision to launch a tablet-optimized Web browser was a no-brainer. As the largest mobile Internet browser company in the world, Opera is in a unique position to capitalize on the tablet market, which is expected to explode in the coming year.

Research firm Gartner (News - Alert) anticipates that consumers will purchase approximately 55 million tablets in 2011, up from just 19.5 million last year. Opera's acceptance as an alternative browser for the Apple (News - Alert) iPhone made the iPad an obvious target for the company.

In related news, Opera recently announced that more than 100 million consumers are now active Opera browser users. According to the company's State of the Mobile Web report, more than 90 million people per month surf the Web using Opera Mini. An additional 15 million people do so using Opera Mobile.

"Experts all have some date when they claim the mobile Web will overtake the PC web — we’re watching that transition now,” Jon von Tetzchner (News - Alert), co-founder of Opera Software, noted in a statement. “But, rather than think of numbers, we think of people. 100 million is the beginning of a new era for the Web."

The company said that more than 40 million consumers began using an Opera browser within the last year. The average U.S. Opera user accounts for a whopping 438 page-views per month.

Beecher Tuttle is a TMCnet contributor. He has extensive experience writing and editing for print publications and online news websites. He has specialized in a variety of industries, including health care technology, politics and education. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Jennifer Russell