10 January 2012

Opera TV Store

Opera Software Logo

Opera announced and demoed at CES 2012 their new strategy and offering. A Opera Browser powered TV OS

How things can change within hours. Yesterday i posted about Ubuntu TV being an alternative to Google TV. Noting how there are now 2 true and through TV OSes. 

Little after that, i read on Opera Software launching their own TV OS, called Opera TV Store.

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Opera in the desktop is nowhere. They have around 2% of marketshare. Its history reads like a tragedy too. Full of too late decisions and moves.Filled with raw innovation, Salvaged by the competition that copied its best features without most of the tech public even knowing it or acknowledging it. 

In Mobile and Devices on the other hand, they are a very strong proponent and have been so for many many years. Thanks to their several Browser versions. Opera Mini that works and can be made to work in pretty much any device you can think of. Opera Mobile that is on Smartphones and Slates. Opera Console Browser that is more of a white-list thing, famously integrated in the Nintendo Wii. 

It is from the wii and other console work that they have learned a lot about the TV space. It is from their experience in the Mobile and Portable spaces that they got a lot of confidence in going with this new TV OS.

Once i finished reading some documentation and seeing some videos about it. including the official one in this post. What i can tell is how this Opera TV OS do takes from everything that Opera has done so far. It takes from their work in the Wii, from their Opera Mobile, but ultimately it takes the most out of what they have on the desktop version of Opera. 

First Official Demo Video Of Opera TV Store


Because in the desktop is not just a browser. It is a browser bundled with a suite of software and even a widget engine. They got their E-mail, their torrent client, the feed reader, userscript support and more all at reach within the Browser. It also got and always has got their own browsing engine by the name of Presto. That has been their pride, but also pain -- even if they do not admit it -- simply because it always was too strict, snob and purist about web standards. It was not until Opera 11 that it stopped being as stuck up in my opinion. 

Opera TV Store then also takes from all that tech they got in all their Opera Browser Versions, mixes it up and then lay it up as TV experience and platform based around Web Stack Apps. Or HTML5 as that is the simplistic media moniker.

And that is when things get the most interesting. Because then you realize that Opera TV OS got more in common with Chrome OS than with Google TV or Ubuntu TV. Making it a TV OS that right now stands out as trendy, lean, tech forward, but that in the end is entering a space where it starts in third place from the get go on that denominator and it is not even in the Top 5 when seen from broader perspectives.

Best of luck to Opera TV, it will need it. Regardless of it looking like a very good TV OS for a first version and first release.

Linkage

Opera TV Promo Portal 

Opera TV Store Fundamentals Portal 

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