Opera Software is taking a two-pronged approach to deploying...
Opera Software is taking a two-pronged approach to deploying Web browser engines in TVs and other devices. It’s targeting its Presto platform at mid-to-low-end products in the short term, but swinging fully in time behind open-source Chromium, said Aneesh Rajaram,…
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senior vice president-TV and devices. Opera, which recently introduced Presto 3.6, will continue with that browser for about two years, before swinging fully behind Blink, which was developed by Google and Opera as part of the Chromium project and introduced in April. Blink was a split of source code among the WebKit’s WebCore component used in Google’s Chrome, Opera 15 and other Chromium-based browsers including Digia’s Qt WebEngine. The split enabled developers to remove unneeded code while providing flexibility in adding new features. The Opera 15 browser has been available for Windows and Macs since July and will also work its way into TVs, Rajaram told us. The open-source software, Rajaram said, will help Opera keep pace as customers increasingly require support for multi-core processors. About 10-30 percent of Opera-based devices will use Blink in 2014 and fully switch to the new browser software within 2-3 years, Rajaram said. “We looked at our requirements and the fact that the road map for our own browser engine wasn’t meeting those requirements, and decided to move to Blink Chromium because it seemed the most advanced” and was better aligned with Opera’s needs and those of the TV market, Rajaram said. The switch to Blink has enabled Opera to expand some focus to other software projects, including its Opera TV Store, which was introduced in July and has more than 100 apps, including Dailymotion, he said. It also launched Opera TV Snap, which enables content owners to convert online video channels and catalogs into smart TV apps. Among Opera customers, Sony has shipped the Presto browser software in “tens of millions” of Bravia TVs and other products, Rajaram said. TiVo, which included the Opera browser in its new Roamio DVRs, has backed Presto.