He's got the front row seat at Opera

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Accepting the premise.

Who wants to use a browser other than IE?
How many people are open to change?

Mr. Tetzchner was asked a question that assumes Opera is battling for a share of the market limited to people "open to using alternatives" to IE. He's asked how Opera can be successful among this (small) group.

In response to this questions, Mr. Tetzchner acknowledges a lot of switching among alternatives to IE, then notes that All the alternatives advocate open standards.

His alternatives for why anyone would switch from IE are boredom (IE not updated for a long time) and security (which he acknowledges has not motivated many; he expects governments to push the issue).

So I'm going to take open standards as his view of a primary reason to switch from IE.

By implication, then, people will look for an alternative to IE if they accept a philosophical principle so strongly that they will reject a Microsoft product which does not adhere to the principle.

Not many people care enough about using computers that they have principles about code which they do not see.

So that argument, also, is not a prediction of success for any alternative to IE.

He may be promising a marketing campaign, but there's not much to market in his statements.


The relevant quote:

The question:
How does the presence of alternative browsers like Mozilla and Firefox affect Opera? It seems that you'd all be fighting for that audience of people open to using alternatives to Microsoft.

The answer:
Von Tetzchner: There are obviously some users who go between Opera and Mozilla. They have Opera one week, Mozilla the next week, and back to Opera....But we have a shared common goal: We would actually like to see open standards prevail.

Posted by: Anton Philidor   Posted on: 09/08/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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