Will capture customers from their former workplace – Aftenposten

One thing Jon von Tetzchner sure. He’s not going to promise again that he will swim across the Atlantic Ocean.

From its self-chosen exile in the United States he builds now a new web browser to compete against Microsoft, Apple, Google – and Opera.

– Actually, it’s quite nice. We are underdogs. There is no one who has any expectations.

Or: Expectations are perhaps slightly higher than last time, says the 47-year norskislendingen.

“last time” he means 1995, when he helped launch the company Opera and later the browser of the same name. The company, which currently has around 350 million users, is considered one of the largest international IT successes originating in Norway.

In 2011, having seen the company grow by 40 percent a year for 15 years , joined von Tetzchner as chief executive of Opera after a series of quarrels with the company’s investors. In his pocket, he had 600 million. Some of the money he spends on an innovation center in the town of Magnolia, Massachusetts, where he now lives with his wife and three children.

And something he uses to create browser Vivaldi along with around 30 new employees in Norway, Iceland and in the United States.

“Nerd Browser”

Vivaldi, which currently only exist in very early and unfinished versions, is supposed to be a browser for advanced. People who require great flexibility and who would have 50 pages open simultaneously. A “nerd browser”, which he himself has called it.

– But of course we have no objection that the masses are also using it, says von Tetzchner and chuckles.

First and foremost hope he bringing some of the same users as he attracted in the previous round. Like an agent who take their customers from one company to another, betting von Tetzchner sure that the old Opera users will like Vivaldi better than the other reviewers – including Opera.

– The new leadership of the Opera has decided to stop developing the browser. They have gone in another direction. There are 60 million Opera users who still uses a three year old browser. It is them we orient ourselves towards the first place, but I hope that many others will like what we do, he said.

And it’s not just the users he will hijack from his old workplace. Around half of Vivaldi’s staff is stocked up from Opera. Several of them have received shares in the new company, but von Tetzchner still has 90 percent stake.

– The advantage of it is that I always agree with the biggest investor, joking he said.

No promises long swim

Listing? Not applicable. Several investors? Not interesting. 47-year-old thrive with Vivaldi as his own project. Currently, a gigantic loss project. But in the long term he believes that there is money to be made.

– Other companies pay us to include them in our search features. Say, for example, that Google pay one dollar pr. uses pr. years. It may be money off, only we manage to get enough users, says Vivaldi boss.

The new browser has been praised by niche sites in the US, and test versions are currently downloaded 1.2 million times .

Von Tetzchner hope to have a full initial version ready during the year.

When Opera version 8.0 was launched in 2005, promised von Tetzchner to swim from Norway to the United States if the browser was downloaded one million times in four days. The goal was reached, but the swim was very short. 47-year-old is unsure how he will celebrate if Vivaldi experiencing similar success.

– I promise enough nothing like that again. But somehow I’ll find. Wait and see, he said.

Published: May 14. 2015 9:29 p.m.