

Opera sends 90 out the door - runarb
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=no&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=no&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digi.no%2F911787%2Fopera-sendte-90-paa-doren

======
wilhelm
It's worse than the article describes. Those laid off are terrified to say
anything publicly. From what I can gather, the total may be double the quoted
number. In addition, morale is at rock bottom, with a number of people leaving
on their own. Opera as we knew it is gone.

I worked for Opera for seven years, three of them managing the core testing
team. I left a year ago. It breaks my heart to see how the current management
treats some of the best engineers I've ever met, loyal to the company for a
decade, like disposable rubbish. Here's your ten-year watch, now fuck off.

In the 2010 downsizing (described by the HR VP as "rightsizing"), they at
least tried to make the decisions look good internally, blaming the economic
downturn. The last two rounds they didn't even bother. No explainations, just
individual talks - and a wave of fear.

The only good news is that there's plenty of fantastically skilled engineers
available. I've hired one myself. If you need anyone, drop me a line, and I'd
be happy to recommend someone for your open position. My loyalty is to my old
team and the technology - not the current mismanagement. /c:

~~~
tatsuke95
> _"Those laid off are terrified to say anything publicly."_

I'm curious as to why?

Norway doesn't seem like a place where people would fear their ex-employers.

~~~
wilhelm
I can only speculate, and I don't think that's particularly helpful. The 2010
downsizing was quite transparent. This time no ordinary employees seem to have
the full picture of what exactly is going in.

~~~
prumek
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?

~~~
dstorey
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.

------
gcp
I thought their press release of less than a week ago said those people were
supposed to improve WebKit :-)

Can imagine that quite a few of those fired would have been tough to motivate,
though. Nobody likes seeing their lifework put out and shot.

~~~
runarb
A culture crash may have contributed to that so many are leaving. According to
the Opera CEO, iOS and Android are the future for Opera now[0].

One could argue that Opera now are in more need of 25 years old iOS
developers, that 40+ C++ specialists.

0:
[http://translate.google.no/translate?sl=no&tl=en&js=...](http://translate.google.no/translate?sl=no&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=no&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digi.no%2F911808%2Fbittersott-
og-nytt-i-opera)

~~~
avar

        > One could argue that Opera now are in
        > more need of 25 years old iOS developers,
        > that 40+ C++ specialists.
    

One could, but would one not be assuming that their 20+ years of experience
wouldn't more than make up for whatever platform-specific skills they'd need
to train on which could surely be picked up in less than a year?

~~~
rplnt
Assuming they want to use their skills that way.

~~~
dagw
Indeed. At least from the article it sounds like everybody was given the
option to move to other projects, mainly client side mobile and desktop
development, but a significant portion of the engineers turned down the offer.

------
sgt
Direct link for those of us who can read Norwegian:
<http://www.digi.no/911787/opera-sendte-90-paa-doren>

~~~
blaabjerg
FWIW, there's also a "Show: original" button on the top right of the Translate
page.

~~~
sgt
Greit nok, men da har man likevel en stor del av vinduet dekket av "Google
Translate", i tillegg til de gigantiske bildene som norske nettaviser typisk
bruker, før man kommer til artikkelen.

------
justinschuh
Good browser engine devs are very hard to come by. I expect they won't have
too much trouble landing on their feet.

~~~
btipling
Difficult to make it out in the translation but if they laid off engineers
good enough to work on Presto they must not be a technology company any more.
They must be transitioning to something else entirely, as your technical team
is an asset and browser engine engineering requires some skill so you if you
had to downsize you probably wouldn't want to get rid of those guys. Although
I guess they can't be cheap. But I figure you could sell that team as a
division and instead of paying severance you would be making money. I just
don't understand what kind of crazy thinking would go into this. Maybe they
just had a bad team that was unhappy?

~~~
dagw
From what I could gather from the article (i read Norwegian) they closed down
the Presto department by offering everybody either a move to a different
department (mainly mobile and desktop clients) or a severance package. At this
point 50-70 people chose to leave. Since then they've also interdependently
gotten rid of various other, both technical and non-technical people, for a
grand total of 90.

 _I just don't understand what kind of crazy thinking would go into this._

It sounds like most of the engineers simply didn't want to move from core
render engine and javascript interpreter development to more front-end client
development.

~~~
nafmo
They did not offer everybody to move to a different department. They did offer
a that to a lot of us, but not to everyone. Most of those of us left were
offered severance packages (which were said to be voluntary, but AFAICT most
of the people who got offered one in the first round took it).

------
vdoma
Just curious, how do browser-only companies like Opera or Mozilla make money?
I know Opera Mini used to be shipped with phones, but what other sources of
revenue do they have?

~~~
gcp
Advertising income due to selling the default homepage and search boxes. In
case of Opera and Mozilla Corporation, the majority of that income is from
Google (who calls this "traffic acquisition costs" in their accounting).

Opera also licenses their browser to many phones and devices. That market may
be starting to dry up.

~~~
objclxt
Opera actually has a substantial sideline in selling mobile advertising, just
like AdMob et al. I know this because my current employer spun-off our mobile
ad network, which Opera then bought.

------
prumek
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.

I thought HN was better than this.

------
tobiasbischoff
By the way: Their year-over-year revenue is up 39% from Q411 to Q412. Most of
their revenue is from providing browsing service to mobile operators around
the world. very well secured by long term contracts and adjusting the
rendering engine should not affect any of that business.

~~~
prumek
Actually, look at the Q4 presentation.

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%.

------
aj700
I'm just gonna throw this slight grenade in. Opera is closed source. Does that
_in practice_ mean that it is unforkable (as is - with Presto)? On the desktop
or mobile versions?

~~~
nafmo
Yes. The source is not available publicly. There is a petition for opening the
sources here - [https://www.change.org/petitions/opera-software-open-
sources...](https://www.change.org/petitions/opera-software-open-sources-of-
presto-engine) \- but I wouldn't hold my breath.

------
atdrummond
How many engineers will they receive from the Skyfire purchase?

~~~
_delirium
As of March 2012 it looks like they had 44 employees and were looking to hire
another 20: [http://it-
jobs.fins.com/Articles/SBB000142405297020337060457...](http://it-
jobs.fins.com/Articles/SBB0001424052970203370604577265340134393880/Skyfire-to-
Hire-20-After-Raising-8-Million)

Not sure how many of those ~65 would be engineers. Somewhere in the range of
30-50?

------
prumek
Strange how my karma takes a nosedive because I contradict the "evil Opera is
doomed" thing...

------
Supermighty
I wonder how many of these Mozilla will pickup on the cheap.

Browser rendering engine seems such a specialized skill, where else could
these people go?

~~~
0x0
Oh come on. It's not like these guys went to Browser Rendering U, and that's
all they know!

~~~
dagw
No, but several of them have been working on rendering engines since before
Mozilla was founded.

~~~
prumek
Several of them? Such as?

