Social networking giant Facebook may acquire the Norwegian browser maker Opera Software, developer of the Opera and Opera Mini browsers for desktops and mobile phones, a report says.
The acquisition would give Facebook a means to fast create a dedicated browser specifically tailored for the social networking site, which currently has an estimated 900 million active monthly users.
Opera says it has about 200 million users across all of its platforms.
According to the Computerworld, this would put the giant social networking giant in the middle of a browser battle with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome.
A number of the companies including Safaricom have since partnered with Facebook while others continue to pose fierce contest within the social networking space.
Opera remains the only top-five browser Facebook could consider acquiring, according Pocket Lint’s source.
Three of the five are locked into operating systems: Internet Explorer, with Windows; Chrome, with ChromeOS; and Safari, with OS X and iOS, The ComputerWorld says.
Firefox, although not associated with OS maker, is supported by the non-profit Mozilla Foundation, which has used the “open Web” mantra since its launch.
It’s therefore difficult to conceive that Mozilla would sell Firefox to Facebook, a company that has reaped billions from a self-contained ecosystem thus leaving only Opera, says the ComputerWorld.
Last month, the Norwegian browser accounted for 1.6 percent of the world’s in-use browsers, according to data from Net Applications, a metrics company.
Opera has never cracked the 3 percent mark, never been in anything but fifth place on the desktop. Even No. 4 Safari has three times Opera’s usage share.
The figures are however a little better on mobile. Although Opera claims an estimated 210 million Opera Mini users worldwide, Net Applications put the browser’s share of mobile at 12 percent for April, almost half what it was last year.
Majority of Opera Mini’s lossed shifted to Safari, the default browser on iPand and iPhone, whose owners, according to the ComputerWorld, have a voracious appetite for the Web.
StatCounter, Net Applications’ Irish rival, indicated Opera to have a 21.5 percent share in April, with Safari at 23.7 percent.
Analysts say this does not mean that Facebook-owned Opera and Opera Mini would be rendered incapable of tilting those figures.
At present, Facebook collects an estimated one-in-every-five page views, hence if the networking site gets to brand Opera and Opera Mini with its own nameplate as well as pitched them to its members, the browser’s share are bound for rapid boosting.
U.K.-based technology site Pocket-lint first reported Friday that Facebook “is looking to buy Opera Software.”
Other sites, including The Next Web, without verifying Facebook’s interest claimed that Opera’s management had been talking to potential suitors.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook IPO, which netted over US$16 billion, has plenty of cash to expand, notes the Pocket Lint.
