Opera Dumps Yahoo For Google

In a surprise move to many, mobile browser Opera has thrown struggling Yahoo over in favor of giant Google for its mobile search needs. This does Yahoo no favors in a time when it is being eyed for takeover and sued by its shareholders. According to online pundits, Yahoo didn't see the move coming.

Opera's mobile browser family includes Opera Mobile and Opera Mini. Now Google is the preferred search option that appears on the browsers' home page. In general, this makes sense to me. Google has always delivered a search result that was more focused and streamlined than Yahoo's, in my opinion. Not only that, Google's interface is already fairly pared down, making it easy to streamline for mobile viewing, unlike Yahoo's clunky, graphics heavy search pages.

Even though Yahoo was formerly the search engine of choice for Opera's mobile browsers, Google has always been the default on the desktop version of Opera. Opera isn't Google's only preferred search client - it also integrates as the default for FireFox. In fact Google is sometimes seen as a de facto FireFox partner because of its branding within that browser. According to Opera's CEO:

"Google and Opera have established a valuable relationship over the years and we look forward to continued collaboration on mobile products," said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera. "With 2008 poised to be the year the mobile Web goes mainstream, Google and Opera are extending this collaboration to give our users immediate access to the quality and convenience of Google's search results. We're excited to extend this productive relationship and we hope that the nearly 100 million people using our mobile products will agree."

Speculation abounds that some money must have changed hands to make this sudden switch happen, though none of the official reports from either camp mention a sale or stock transaction. Personally, I think Google is positioning itself for a possible future war with Microsoft over search status and ad revenue in the face of Microsoft's hostile bid for Yahoo. The more real estate Google can snap up in search and browser functionality, the better positioned it will be to hold its spot as the king of search in the future.