Opera CEO Steps Down After 15 Years at the Helm

Opera Software hasn't exactly been flying high lately so the latest shakeup of the company's management structure may prove to be just what it needed. Cofounder and CEO for the past 15 years at the Norwegian company, Jon von Tetzchner, is stepping down from his position and is being replaced by Lars Boilesen, the company's chief commercial officer (CCO) so far, with quite a few years at Opera as well.

"Lars Boilesen brings both a very significant industry experience and a deep understanding of Opera to the role as the company's Chief Executive Officer. In short, Opera's spirit runs through his veins," Jon von Tetzchner, the company's former CEO said in a statement.

"My decision to assume a new role in Opera is based on a lengthy consideration process. As outgoing Chief Executive, I leave confident in the company's continued leadership in key markets, our strong management team, our ongoing commitment to innovation, and our robust financial foundation," he added.

Boilesen started working at Opera in 2000 and he served as the company's Executive VP of Sales until 2005, when the company saw a great shift from being just a browser maker to a web browsing technology provider, offering tools and services to a big number of mobile devices, as well as consumer electronics devices.

He left Opera, for a period serving as CEO of the Nordics and the Baltics for telecommunications giant Alcatel-Lucen. He continued to be involved with Opera as vice chairman of the Board of Directors and he finally returned to the company in early 2009 as CMO. Tetzchner apparently decided to step down as CEO for personal reasons giving him more time to spend with his family. He will continue to be involved with Opera as a full-time strategic consultant.

Opera has been in the browser market longer than all the big players today; yet, it hasn't managed to gain too much traction in all these years, even as Firefox has surged and new-comer Chrome is picking up steam. The company has been doing much better on the mobile front where it has the most popular browser by a big margin. It also provides CE manufacturers with customized browsers for various devices, including the Nintendo Wii.