Opera makes eBay bid for mobile browsing

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 7 Jun 2006 at 18:30

Popular IE alternative Opera is soon to be available in an eBay version on mobile phones.

The Norwegian developers are piloting the special edition of the Opera Mini mobile browser in Germany, eBay's largest territory outside the US.

The eBay edition features a search field and bookmarks to key eBay content on the start page and users can browse, bid, buy and sell from a mobile.

Regular Web pages are resized on the fly for the smaller screens of mobile devices using Opera's Small-Screen Rendering (SSR) technology, so site owners don't have to create dedicated mobile pages designed for such devices.

'The Web is rapidly expanding from the PC realm to mobile phones, and our partnership with eBay is a terrific example of how a Web based service can reach the mobile mass market with their existing solutions through Opera Mini,' says Rolf Assev, CCO, Opera Software. 'We are very pleased to work with eBay to offer their users full access to eBay's Online Marketplace and the full Web on their phones.'

There is no news as yet as to when the eBay edition of Opera Mini will make it to UK shores.