31–40 of 120 posts
I wonder how many of these Mozilla will pickup on the cheap. Browser rendering engine seems such a specialized skill, where else could these people go?
Why do you think they'll want to work for Mozilla "on the cheap"?
It not necessarily means low wages, but more "easy grab".
Just curious, how do browser-only companies like Opera or Mozilla make money? I know Opera Mini used to be shipped with phones, but what other sources of revenue do they have?
Direct link for those of us who can read Norwegian: http://www.digi.no/911787/opera-sendte-90-paa-doren
Just curious, how do browser-only companies like Opera or Mozilla make money? I know Opera Mini used to be shipped with phones, but what other sources of revenue do they have?
Opera also licenses their browser to many phones and devices. That market may be starting to dry up.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One could argue that Opera now are in more need of 25 years old iOS developers, that 40+ C++ specialists. To do what, make more Angry Birds clones? Engineers that spent 15 years working on every possible mobile device aren't suddenly magically unable to start working on a new one.
Engineers that spent many years working on challenging problems in highly performance-critical areas of the core engine might not be all that interested in doing UI design on iOS.
I wonder how many of these Mozilla will pickup on the cheap. Browser rendering engine seems such a specialized skill, where else could these people go?
Where could they not go?
It's worse than the article describes. Those laid off are terrified to say anything publicly. From what I can gather, the total may be double the quoted number. In addition, morale is at rock bottom, with a number of people leaving on their own. Opera as we knew it is gone. I worked for Opera for seven years, three of them managing the core testing team. I left a year ago. It breaks my heart to see how the current ma…
I'm curious as to why?
Norway doesn't seem like a place where people would fear their ex-employers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Difficult to make it out in the translation but if they laid off engineers good enough to work on Presto they must not be a technology company any more. They must be transitioning to something else entirely, as your technical team is an asset and browser engine engineering requires some skill so you if you had to downsize you probably wouldn't want to get rid of those guys. Although I guess they can't be cheap. But I…
From what I could gather from the article (i read Norwegian) they closed down the Presto department by offering everybody either a move to a different department (mainly mobile and desktop clients) or a severance package. At this point 50-70 people chose to leave. Since then they've also interdependently gotten rid of various other, both technical and non-technical people, for a grand total of 90. I just don't unders…
It's worse than the article describes. Those laid off are terrified to say anything publicly. From what I can gather, the total may be double the quoted number. In addition, morale is at rock bottom, with a number of people leaving on their own. Opera as we knew it is gone. I worked for Opera for seven years, three of them managing the core testing team. I left a year ago. It breaks my heart to see how the current ma…
> "Those laid off are terrified to say anything publicly." I'm curious as to why? Norway doesn't seem like a place where people would fear their ex-employers.
I thought their press release of less than a week ago said those people were supposed to improve WebKit :-) Can imagine that quite a few of those fired would have been tough to motivate, though. Nobody likes seeing their lifework put out and shot.
I thought that all the developer time they are saving would go into improving the browser and only a small number of people would be contributing to WebKit. I.e. browser improves faster as less time is spent working on the browser engine. Now it is obvious. Cost saving! Which is fine, just a bit disappointing. Especially considering how they have 3 products. Opera, Opera Mini and the new Tablet Browser (I don't know…
This makes perfect business sense for Opera - why work hard to make a browser, when it can get one for free. As a plus, that browser uses WebKit, so its main competitors - mobile Safari and the mobile version of Chrome - will never be ahead of it on core engine features. Furthermore, one of those competitors, Chrome, will never be ahead of it in any way since they will be practically the same browser.
For that reason I doubt anyone believed Opera would be putting much engineering effort into core WebKit or even core Chromium. It makes no business sense - Google is already doing all the hard work on Chromium (and WebKit, with others), and anything Opera adds to WebKit shows up in its main competitors immediately.
What Opera does need engineers for is to replace the Google-specific stuff in Chrome, like login to Google services and other Google web services. Also Opera will modify the UI. Opera can also add some stuff on top of that to differentiate. But Opera simply no longer needs a significant browser engine department - Google is now that department.