Opera Software revealed yesterday that a proposal to buy the company has been made by a Chinese consortium, and they are most likely going to accept it. The company is now trying to convince the community that it's a good thing.
As it was to be expected, the buyout offer received by Opera took everyone by surprise, and that includes the community. The consortium that wants to buy Opera comprises a couple of well-known Chinese companies, Qihoo 360 and Kunlun, and now everyone in the community holds them in high regard.
Convincing people that it's actually a good move for the company is definitely going to be difficult, especially since the Chinese investors don't have the best reputation in the world. On the other hand, they are coming up with 50% per share more than the regular price, so that kind of offer is really hard to turn down.
What's going to happen to Opera?
If the buyout is successful, things will get better, or at least, this is what the company is saying. Users shouldn't feel any kind of difference; in fact, they should notice an increase in the development pace.
"In the desktop team, we think this is good news. If the deal is realized, Opera for computers will be able to reach more users, faster. We will be able to accelerate our roadmaps, fix more bugs and contribute more code to the web," Opera developers said on the blog.
They also mentioned another thing, which makes sense if you think about the fact that buyers are from China. The phrase "We think web browsers should be made not only for people living on the U.S. west coast" can only mean that they plan to release the browser for the Chinese market as well.
If the transaction is completed, we will probably see an expansion of Opera, but the community doesn't have to worry, at least not yet. The situation will remain status quo for a good while because the investors probably don't want to destroy the Internet browser’s good reputation.
