On October 20, in Oslo, Norway, Opera announced that the new Opera Mobile 9.5 would come with Opera Widgets. The company presented this release as one that marked the second Opera Mobile 9.5 beta for Windows Mobile, and the first beta for UIQ based phones. Developers would also get a S60 Widget manager within the Opera Widget SDK. 

The mobile carrier T-Mobile is already using Opera Mobile with Widgets for its web'n'talk initiative. Now, other mobile operators can incorporate Opera Widgets into their customer offering, thus making it possible for customer-selected Web content to be accessed from a list of icons on the home-screen. Widgets can also be used as a means of customer communication, since automatic notifications are easier to deliver to subscribers with it.

"Opera has built its second Opera Mobile 9.5 beta based on user-generated feedback following its first public release earlier this year," the CEO of Opera Software, Jon von Tetzchner, said. "In addition to Opera Widgets, this new test version promises to be a smoother ride than the previous version, as we have improved page loading times and increased our focus on end-user productivity."

Opera Mobile 9.5 beta builds now come with several Opera Widgets pre-installed, and more are available at widgets.opera.com. 

Another thing that Opera did was to launch the updated SDK (Software Development Kit) with a developer competition called the "X Widget Challenge." Opera is offering $10,000 in cash prizes for the best cross-device widget submissions. Developers can read more at my.opera.com/widgets.

"Opera has kept developer needs at the heart of this beta release," the Chief Technology Officer at Opera Software, Håkon Wium Lie, said. "All great developers need great tools to work with. Opera is an industry leader in making the Web a developer-friendly place by constantly innovating within the confines of Web standards. We will continue to create with developers in mind, as we intend to continue to grow our developer toolkit with each consecutive release."