Who says employees don't have the full picture? The reasons are even stated in public.
Why would they be terrified of speaking in public -- and if they are, why are several people doing it?
You say that speculating is not particularly useful, and you still speculate that people are terrified of Opera Software, and that the company is lying to its investors about the number of employees?
I’m not sure there are many former employees that are speaking out in public. The ones I’ve seen are my own (obviously), Chaals, and Wilhelm’s comment here. All of us left of our own free will, (long) before these latest layoffs happened. I‘m not sure I’ve seen anything from anyone directly effected (not that this doesn't mean people have and I missed it).
I‘m not saying there is any fear involved, or a conspiracy theory, just that I haven't seen this as the case, bar private posts, and tweets from some that they left the company. When Google laid a large number off at Motorola (of which I was included), there was some sort of agreement in the package about not speaking bad of the company or products. This could be the case here, I don't know.
Operators are less than 20%. Desktop is the second biggest with nearly 30%, while publishing/advertising is the biggest revenue source with more than 40%.
What makes you think they aren't goig to work on Webkit? Out of those 90 people who left or were fired, there were marketing, sales, etc. personell. Only a minority was probably an actual developer.
What makes you think Opera is outsourcing development to Google? Just because something is using a framework doesn't mean they aren't using it to build their own thing on top of it.
Your comment doesn't make sense. It's wild speculation based on an article with false statements.
> What makes you think Opera is outsourcing development to Google? Just because something is using a framework doesn't mean they aren't using it to build their own thing on top of it.
They are using Chromium as their browser. Chromium is a full browser, so basically almost all the work on Opera's new browser will be done by Google. That is why I said "outsourcing development to Google", but of course I didn't mean it literally as in "paying Google to develop for them".
That's not speculation, that's just what it means when Opera is switching to Chromium.
Opera will add stuff on top. But Opera can't differentiate much in the core browser stuff, otherwise it would be forking Chromium and it would become harder and harder over time to get updates from upstream. That makes no sense technically or business-wise. What does make sense is to add things on top that are modular and separate, for example remove Google's login and replace it with Opera's, etc.
You are misunderstanding what "using Chromium means." As I replied to cpeterso:
Using the Chromium framework doesn't mean that you are using the actual final Chromium UI. The CEO himself said they're building a new UI.
Differentiation doesn't take place in the browser engine. It take splace in the UI. Most people have no idea which engine they are using, and they don't care.
I think we are in total agreement: They will use Chromium but change some things on top, including the UI. They will also add support for Opera addons, change the login stuff, etc.
I disagree though about your saying differentiation not taking place in the engine. It takes place everywhere, including the engine.
Opera has said they will leave all the core stuff to Google and just modify UI and other stuff on top. That means almost all development is done by Google.
This isn't the case when you use a small open source codebase. But it is the case here when Opera is using an enormous codebase by a huge corporation, and just innovating in the UI and other modular features on top of the huge core.
The story is misleading. 90 people have either left of their own free will or were let go for various reasons. Those 90 were not all developers, but included marketing, sales, and other non-engineering staff.
All the comments so far therefore seem to be based on the misconception that they fired their entire Presto development team.
Why would they be terrified of speaking in public -- and if they are, why are several people doing it?
You say that speculating is not particularly useful, and you still speculate that people are terrified of Opera Software, and that the company is lying to its investors about the number of employees?