Rumors have been spreading that Microsoft was gonna buy Opera last week. They have been denied by the Oslo-based company (I actually visited the CEO back in 1998 or 99 when I was speaking at a conference in Oslo), but boy does this make sense.

Opera is super fast and super stable–everything Microsoft is not. The download for Opera used to be 1MEG, five years later I think it’s 3MEG. This is how to make software people: LIGHT AND FAST!

Microsoft Buying Opera would be like Yahoo buying Flickr or AOL buying Weblogs, Inc. in that it would be a paradigm shift in thinking.

I used to force folks to use Opera at Silicon Alley Reporter. I would come to their desks and setup the browser myself and say “now you’ll be much more efficient.” It’s true… users who use Opera are 50% more efficient than IE users… seriously, I did a study.