Opera, the alternative Web browser showing good momentum in the wireless and set-top box markets, is celebrating its 10th birthday - coming shortly after the same anniversary as Windows 95. Opera is marking the occasion by giving away free registration codes for 24 hours. To get one, click here. Opera roots go back to its days as a research project at Norwegian carrier Telenor. According to an interview Om Malik did in last month's Business 2.0 with CEO Jon von Tetzchner, Opera sells about 100K copies of its $39 software a year but only one-third of its revenue comes from the desktop market where it has 10 million to 15 million active users - most of them using the free ad-supported version. On the non-PC side of the house, von Tetzchner said Opera sold 8.8 million copies of its software last year. These customers include Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Casio, BenQ and Kyocera.

The Seaboard Group have put together another insightful and entertaining report on the Canadian VOIP market called "Top of the First – the VoIP battle begins". So what's the bottom line? Seaboard expects there will be 4.02 million VOIP lines by 2008, compared with 418K by the end of 2005. In terms of dollars, the market in three years will be worth about $1 billion, or 5% of the total voice business, as intense competition drives down prices. So what should carriers do stay vibrant in the voice market? Seaboard advises them to "fight fire with fire" by rolling out VOIP services that exploit the weaknesses of cablecos products. Seaboard points out that a vulnerable area for the cablecos is the lack of value-added features. Videotron Ltee, for example, has attracted 62K customers in the past six months even though it is offering a low-frills service. Then again, selling VOIP for as low as $15.95 a month helps the sales effort, and Seaboard expects the cableco to have 125K customers by the end of 2005. The research firm suggests the cablecos stay on the offensive as it will be more difficult for Bell/Telus to win back customers than it will be for the cablecos to win them in the first place. As for the independents such as Vonage and Primus, Seaboard believes it will be more difficult for them to compete. As a result, they need to keep on the marketing warpath and show consumers they can be innovative, flexible and adaptible.

With Google Talk and Google Desktop released into the wild, the question on the minds of many people is what's next for Google strategically? Broadband Reports suggests a Google portal featuring Mozilla tools that would be used by ISPs through a marketing agreement - rather than Google running a Wi-Fi network or traditional ISP service. While it's an interesting idea, Google has shown tepid interest in the portal market - at least so far. I dabbled with the Google homepage earlier this year but haven't used it much since or heard anything from Google in terms of an upgrade. Perhaps the portal strategy will unfold after Google Talk and Google Desktop gain some momentum and/or market share. As for relationships with ISPs, who's Google going to partner with? Given Yahoo has made strong inroads with the telcos, does Google pursue the cable market? Does Google strike deals with dial-up ISPs, which are still vibrant and need no-frills tools to maintain customers? Or does Google simply launch its own stand-alone portal? With more than $6-billion in the bank - assuming Google completes its $4.2-billion secondary offering - the company has the financial clout to do pretty much what it likes.