14 DAY TRIAL // Opera and MediaTek has just announced a new partnership aimed at making the most popular mobile browser in the world, Opera Mini, available on MediaTek’s Runtime Environment (MRE).
MediaTek Inc. is a leading fabless semiconductor company for wireless communications, while its Runtime Environment has been designed for offering mobile developers and application providers the possibility to come up with services and content for “smart-feature-phones.”
Through MRE, millions of people all around the world should be able to enjoy a rich mobile Internet experience while on the go.
The best part of the deal is that the great Internet experience MRE can deliver, although on par with what smartphones have to offer, does not require the use of a smartphone.
“This partnership will allow users of handsets powered by MediaTek’s MRE platform to enjoy the best and most affordable Internet experience,” Opera notes.
At the moment, Opera Mini enjoys a large customer base, with over 140 million users taking advantage of its capabilities each month.
Opera Mini can deliver great browsing capabilities, courtesy of renowned compression technology through which it can reduce data loads on networks by up to 90 percent before sending it to phones. Thus, both the loading of pages is improved, and the data cost is reduced.
“MediaTek and Opera Software share the same vision. We both want people to access the Web on their own terms,” said Lars Boilesen, CEO of Opera Software.
“The MRE solution makes the traditional feature phone smarter and, at the same time, delivers the best user experience. Opera Mini makes the Web an enjoyable experience regardless of bandwidth. We look forward to seeing the next billion people to surf with Opera Mini on MRE-powered phones.”
For those out of the loop, we should note that MediaTek is one of the largest mobile chipset platform providers in the world, with over 500 million units shipped during 2010 for being packed inside various devices.