I have been a big fan of Opera as a viable alternative to Internet Explorer. Long before FireFox became all the rage, Opera was the de facto competition to IE. Opera doesn't get a lot of buzz these days but it's still chugging along nicely, particularly in the wireless market where it has a burgeoning relationship with Symbian.
Opera created a little pre-Christmas news with a new version of its browser that reads Web pages and e-mail aloud. According to CEO John von Tetzchner, Opera 8.0 represents the evolution of the Web as an interactive medium.
I'm not sure whether voice-enabled Opera will set the world on fire or draw any more users to Opera but it does show there are companies out there developing new features. This stands in contrast to IE, which still uses SpyGlass as its foundation and continues to grapple with security issues.
Say what you want about FireFox's success in winning market share but IE still has more than 90% of the browser market. Internet users must either be lazy, ignorant or strangely satisfied with IE. If more people explored the alternatives out there - which would likely encourage developers to create new browsers - I believe surfing the Web will become a better experience. With IE dominating - and some would say controlling - the browser market, we are only scratching the surface of what the Web can offer.

If you were among those lucky enough to sit through five hours of presentations last week during BCE Inc.'s annual analyst conference, the emphasis on selling Internet-based services to residential and business customers was crystal clear.
"On [Internet Protocol], this company will simply not be outflanked," said Michael Sabia, BCE president and chief executive, in setting the tone for a series of presentations by Bell's senior business and technology executives.
Bell's strategic commitment to IP can be seen on a number of fronts. It has made a major investment in migrating its older networks to Internet-based technology, launched new services ...   more »