Opera's Had a Busy 2011, but 2012 Promises to Be Even Better Especially on Mobiles

Opera has had quite a busy year. The browser maker has switched gears and started releasing more often, with three major versions coming out in 2011. But it also made some headway into mobile, arguably, its most important market, especially with the launch of its first Android browser.

"We stepped up our game in mobile browsing with the release of Opera Mini 6 and Opera Mobile 11," Opera boasted.

"Meanwhile, over on the desktop, 2011 saw the release of Opera 11.10, code-named Barracuda, followed by a quick jump over .4 spaces on the release ladder to 11.50, closing out the year on the high note of Opera 11.60," it said.

"With each of these releases, Speed Dial looked slicker, searching became easier, and the browser engine running the whole shebang got a mighty extra dose of processing power and rendering capability," it added.

On the desktop, things continue to improve at an accelerated rate. Opera 11.50 brought plenty of new features, but Opera 11.60, despite the smaller version number increase, has a lot going for it as well.

But the most interesting Opera release for a while promises to be Opera 12 which is now scheduled to land sometime early next year.

Opera's main playing field is not on the desktop though, it's on mobile devices. Opera Mini is simply untouchable on feature phones, but the browser maker faces a bigger competition on smartphones and tablets. Opera Mobile 11 launched early this year, the first to support Android, the most popular smartphone platform.

But the Android browser market is crowded. Most people use the default browser, but if they don't they have plenty of choices, like the Dolphin browser, Opera Mobile and Opera Mini, Firefox and others.

Still, the market is young and Opera has an opportunity to secure a much bigger market share for itself than it has on the desktop. One unique advantage it has is all the feature phone Opera users that will eventually switch to smartphones.