I’m really interested in how this might affect, aid, support Google’s introduction into the mobile handset market with their open source Android Platform. Is this a main reason in their move to do this or would they have done this anyway?

Shoot me an e-mail if you get a chance - I run http://phandroid.com and am writing an article on this story as it relates to android as we speak.

Thanks!

Which version of google search does it default to?  IE how many transcoders is the page going to get passed through before it’s sent to the Opera Mini on the user’s phone?  Google transcodes a lot of sites it doesn’t have to, and Opera Mini is run through a transcoder on Opera’s server’s isn’t it?

Rpesonding to Phandroid:

http://www.phandroid.com/forum/showthread.php?p=47#post47

Anyway I don’t think Opera will become the primary browser on Android. I think it does make a good secondary browser on the platform though, but I don’t think it will ever outpace the good, open source, webkit browser on Android. Android is running largely the same browser as on the Iphone, except it’s easier to improve, and work with. (The Android java activites can directly interact with the browser, and with it’s scripting). It’s also largely the same browser as Nokia S60 browser, which currently dominates the smart phone market.