Google Search has its share of high profile relations with third parties. Mozilla, for one, has Google as its default search field inside the Firefox browser. Google also makes sure users of Apple’s Safari browser see its search tool above all others upon first boot. That goes for Mac and iPhone and iPod touch owners alike.
Now Opera’s mobile development team can call themselves official bandwagoneers (the word makes you wince, doesn’t it?), too. Both Opera Mobile (built for Symbian and Windows Mobile) and Opera Mini (built for everything else) are giving Google some good, quality strategic treatment where mobile Web search is concerned. Not to mention potentially very lucrative.
Mr Tetzchner claims Opera’s reach in the mobile arena is currently closing in on 100 million people - 100 million phones installed with Opera Mobile shipped; 35 million “cumulative users” for Opera Mini. An impressive figure, for sure. If one is to account for some generous overlap, 100 million sounds like a fairly solid estimate.