Facebook May Buy Opera To Create Own Browser

Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) has apparently not allowed the scandal around its IPO, its slowing growth, or questions about its revenue from mobile devices to slow its M&A activity. It is in talks to buy the company which owns Opera, one of the internet browsers. It is assumed that Facebook would create a new browser with pathways to its own products and functions, much as Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) does with its Internet Explorer and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) does with Chrome. These two products and Mozilla’s Firefox dominate the market

The domination of these three browsers would make Facebook’s effort an uphill battle. But it has 900 million members that it can market the browser to. It is worth remembering that Google’s Chrome was only released at the end of 2008. Google made a successful attempt to convert visitors to its search feature to convert them from Internet Explorer and Firefox.By some measures, Chrome is the most widely used browser in the world

The first report of the possible buyout was reported by website Pocket-Lint. Its editors wrote:

Pocket-lint has heard from one of its trusted sources that the social networking giant is looking to buy Opera Software, the company behind the Opera web browser.

Douglas A. McIntyre