Opera Watch: Rumor: Google to buy Opera, according to Yahoo Europe president
Pierre Chappaz, the former president of Yahoo Europe, claims to have a source, whom he says is generally very well informed, who told him that Google is planning on buying the Opera web browser.
I must say that I find this very hard to believe; after all, Google recently hired some Mozilla/Firefox people, in addition to being an active supporter of the open source browser.
If this in fact were true, it wouldn’t be the first time that Opera has been approached by a major company for a buyout. Back in 1996 Sun Microsystems made an offer to buy Opera for about £9 million ($16.8 million US). A while back an Opera spokeswoman told me that they have been approached by major companies in the past but Opera’s CEO, Jon von Tetzchner, has always declined the offers, no matter the dollar size.
An Opera official outright denied this claim, after I asked about it, saying “Rumors come and go. Google is not buying Opera.”
Perhaps there is a bit of truth to this, maybe Google is collaborating with Opera on some project that we don’t know about yet. Who knows?
Via: Gigaom, Reuters, Searchenginewatch, Operawatch, Reuters nochmal, Searchenginewatch nochmal, Golem:
Das seit wenigen Tagen durch das Internet geisternde Gerücht, Google würde in Kürze Opera aufkaufen, wurde von den Norwegern dementiert. Opera stellte klar, dass derzeit auch keine Übernahmeverhandlungen mit anderen Firmen laufen.