Opera Targets Developers and Designers
Opera, the little browser that could, seems to be aiming squarely at the the developer/designer crowd. While catching up on Daring Fireball this morning, I noticed an unusual ad via "The Deck":
Clicking on the ad takes you to one of a couple of tastefully designed download pages that tout Opera as a way to "end the frustration." The pages also contain a handful of pointers on using Opera for web development.
While it has the odd quirk, I've always considered it a shame that Opera has such a tiny market share. Part of the reason, no doubt, is due to the fact that it remained a commercial product for so long while free alternatives (i.e. Firefox) flourished. Now a free download, Opera is a curious beast these days - the free desktop browser is more or less subsidized by Opera's position in non-traditional browser markets like cell phones and gaming systems (Opera provides the web browser for both Nintendo DS and Wii). So, it's interesting to see them advertising the desktop browser to developers and designers.
In my experience, Opera 9 (at least on the Mac) blows Firefox out of the water in terms of responsiveness and speed. It's support for web standards and participation in groups like WHATWG is also impressive. Is this ad indicative of greater developer support from Opera? And will developers respond? I hope so. For now we'll have to wait and see.
