Opera is aiming to strengthen its mobile email offering by taking over FastMail, an Australian email provider.
“The newest generation of web users will discover the web through a mobile device,” says Rolf Assev, chief strategy officer of Opera.
“Having world-class messaging capability alongside a rich and compelling Web experience is essential. By combining forces, Opera and FastMail.fm can offer messaging on any device.”
Opera says it plans to deliver cross-platform messaging to a wide range of devices, including computers, mobile phones, TVs and gaming consoles. Its mobile web browser, Opera Mini, has over 55 million users.
“Joining together Opera’s expertise in web browsers and especially the mobile market, and FastMail.FM’s expertise in email, will allow us to grow and take on the next big challenges in running and building an email service,” says FastMail’s Rob Mueller.
“Opera have a huge browser customer base – over 100 million users – and a thriving community of users at my.opera.com, which will help us grow FastMail in size and reach.”
As part of the deal, some Opera staff will move to Australia, and some FastMail employees to Norway. Financial details weren’t disclosed.
