It’s been a busy week for the makers of the Opera web browser. First the company announced it would be dropping its Presto rendering engine and moving to Webkit. Now the company has spent $155 million to acquire rival browser maker Skyfire.

Like Opera, Skyfire has had a level of success in the mobile web browser market by offering features that you don’t get from default browsers on platforms like iOS and Android. Both companies have mobile browsers that support slow devices and slow internet connections by pre-rendering data on remote servers to save bandwidth before sending images and other content to your phone.

Skyfire also went a step further by developing software that converts Flash and other online video content into a mobile-friendly format and lets you kind of, sort of watch Flash content on an iPhone, among other things.

The company also offers a service called Rocket Optimizer that lets mobile operators save bandwidth by optimizing content before sending it to your mobile device.

By acquiring Skyfire, Opera will gain access to both the company’s mobile browser technology and Skyfire’s services developed for carriers, helping to strengthen the company’s portfolio of products in the mobile space.

As for Skyfire users, it doesn’t look like they’ll notice any changes… at least not right away. Skyfire will continue to operates as a separate company. It’ll just be a subsidiary of Opera. The Skyfire web browser will continue to be developed and supported.

Share this article: Share this: Facebook

Twitter

Reddit

Pocket

Tumblr

Pinterest

LinkedIn

Email

