Opera's Jon Von Tetzchner on browser choice, the iphone and Google
The highlights — Interview In a wide-ranging interview today Opera chairman Jon von Tetzchner talked about the Browser Choice ruling, Opera's iPhone app, Google as a competitor, and how P2P will be the next generation of the web.
Context & Ripple Effects
Von Tetzchner has spent two years pushing the case that led here: his January 2009 Q&A on the antitrust fight against Internet Explorer framed the complaint that produced the Browser Choice ruling now forcing Microsoft to expose European users to alternatives. The interview lands at the moment that remedy goes live, with Opera positioned as its chief beneficiary.
The competitive frame is more complicated than the desktop fight suggests. Back in October 2008 he argued that Chrome had been very good for Opera by legitimizing browser switching, yet he now names Google as a direct competitor — and Opera's growth path runs through Apple's iPhone, a closed storefront where no regulator-mandated choice screen exists.
First-order effects
- Opera gains a state-backed distribution channel in Europe as the Browser Choice ruling puts it in front of every new Windows user choosing a browser — the payoff from the antitrust campaign von Tetzchner has led since 2009.
- Opera's iPhone app puts it inside Apple's store on Apple's terms, making App Store approval and placement — not market share litigation — the binding constraint on its mobile ambitions.
Second-order effects
- Naming Google as a competitor signals Opera must fight on two fronts at once: Microsoft's bundled default on desktop and Google's Chrome, which already reshaped user expectations about speed and updates.
- Apple faces the contrast between Europe's mandated desktop browser choice and its own single-store model; if Opera's iOS presence grows, pressure builds for comparable choice mechanisms on mobile platforms.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, browser competition splits into two regimes: regulated openness on the Windows desktop and gatekeeper discretion on iOS — leaving Opera and rivals to win mobile through product rather than legal remedy, while von Tetzchner's P2P-as-next-web thesis bets the next shift comes from architecture, not antitrust.
The trend: Browser competition is migrating from desktop antitrust remedies won against Microsoft toward mobile platforms where Apple and Google control distribution directly.