Opera tests its new features and products via a network of registered users under nondisclosure agreements – as many as 100,000 users may download and take Opera’s prototypes for a spin. The rough edges are smoothed out, and the company later takes the software to devices. Those devices often run on the Linux operating system, which is a so-called “open-source” alternative to Microsoft’s vastly dominant Windows. Open source is one thing, open standards, which von Tetzchner endorses, is another: but both promote access, compatibility, interoperability and healthy competition on the internet, according to advocates. Proprietary patents can stand in the way, von Tetzchner argues, stressing that this technological and legal issue essentially is about consumers having choices.

He points out that open standards historically have enabled anyone to pick up a phone and call anywhere in the world, going through many parties who have agreed on one standard. The same should be true in terms of hardware and software, he says. It’s logical and strategic advocacy by a cross-platform, cross-device software developer and Microsoft competitor. Opera is advocating, as well as innovating, accordingly. The company is now looking at how to glue different platforms together. For example, bringing bookmarks automatically from your desktop to your mobile phone, so you don’t have to enter enormous addresses on your phone.

Von Tetzchner sees the web as evolving from a way to view content, to being a way to programme, and the browser as a way to run more and more applications. Five, 10, or more years from now, the internet will essentially be as we know it today, he says. As it ages, it will pass through certain phases, like video, the current hot feature. Of course, there will more video in years to come, as well as more content, but the biggest change is that you will have more access and more capability, anywhere, anytime, von Tetzchner believes. That’s the future that Opera is betting on.

A number of players have tried to ante up, including Sun Microsystems – von Tetzchner won’t confirm it, but it’s common knowledge – and an undisclosed number of others. What if Microsoft put a lot of money on the table? Von Tetzchner says: “One thing, we are not looking to be bought. We are having fun with what we are doing. Second, there’s something about Microsoft; we’ve been fighting them for years. Microsoft is not our favourite. We haven’t always liked their behaviour, to be frank. And I think that for a lot of people at Opera, that would be the worst thing that could happen.”

That being said, what would Microsoft have to pay? Von Tetzchner, seated in the Copenhagen café, takes a sip of his second espresso as mobile phones ring here and there. He doesn’t blink: “The value of Microsoft plus one dollar.”

LESSONS FROM THE FRONT LINE

Competing with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer since 1995 and surviving has taught Opera’s Jon von Tetzchner many things. Among them:

• Be stubborn. If someone is telling you that you are wrong, you may be very right. Recognising what is true is the crucial thing.

• Stock options for employees? Yes, because ownership works. Whose house would you rather paint, yours or the neighbour’s?

• Should Europe be channelling public investments into IT research and development? Perhaps. But don’t necessarily pick winners. The next big thing may be totally unanticipated.

• Some of the best ideas are from people coming up with things that they are not actually supposed to be working on.