Hello there, Wilhelm. I hear you've been bringing up my name quite a lot lately.
I'm happy to oblige, of course.
> Those laid off are terrified to say anything publicly.
Could you, for the sake of clarity, explain why you think that is? What are they afraid of?
I'm also wondering how you reconcile this with not only the comments from previous employees on sites like Twitter, but also to the press:
http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/18/opera-shrinks-in-house-deve...
> From what I can gather, the total may be double the quoted number.
You don't have to guess. You can find the actual number in the 4th quarter report on page 12:
http://media.opera.com/media/finance/2012/4Q12.pdf
The 90 or so people who decided to leave (some couldn't accept the technology change) or were laid off included not only engineers (QA and development), but also marketing, sales, and other departments.
I read somewhere that about half of the people leaving were engineers. Since engineers make up the majority of the company, it actually seems like the development teams weren't hit as hard as non-development teams.
> In addition, morale is at rock bottom, with a number of people leaving on their own. Opera as we knew it is gone.
I think some people were offered voluntary severance packages. I'm guessing that some were disappointed by the move to WebKit, and this was a golden opportunity for them to move on to something else. Those who remain, then, should be committed to the new engine (and those who remain are the vast majority, as far a I can tell).
I don't know about morale being at rock bottom. It's pretty liberating to not have to deal with those site compatibility problems (to such an extent) anymore. Morale usually increases when people get to do cool things instead of grinding on the same old compatibility problems forever. Of course, downsizings are never fun, but I've been through probably 5 or 6 of them in my years at Opera. People get over it eventually.
Is the Opera you knew gone? That depends on what the Opera you knew was. The company has been under constant change for as long as I've been here at least. With the growth of the company and the changes in the market in general, that is quite inevitable.
> In the 2010 downsizing (described by the HR VP as "rightsizing"), they at least tried to make the decisions look good internally, blaming the economic downturn. The last two rounds they didn't even bother. No explainations, just individual talks - and a wave of fear.
We had a department meeting, and to their credit, they actually told the affected people right away. They didn't have to wait for days or weeks to hear the judgment, which is what happened under the previous management.
As for reasons, the change in technology is obvious. Then there's the acquisition of Skyfire which seems to be the biggest one in Opera's history. It's going to cost a lot of money, so it seems logical that the company wishes to save money where they can.
> My loyalty is to my old team and the technology - not the current mismanagement.
In a comment elsewhere you started that the switch to WebKit was the inevitable result of Opera's past missteps. Does that not mean that you are actually arguing that the change done by the current management is caused by the mistakes of the former management which you now praise? That the former "good management" actually forced the hands of the current "bad management" with its mistakes?
Just an observation.
I'm happy to oblige, of course.
> Those laid off are terrified to say anything publicly.
Could you, for the sake of clarity, explain why you think that is? What are they afraid of?
I'm also wondering how you reconcile this with not only the comments from previous employees on sites like Twitter, but also to the press:
http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/18/opera-shrinks-in-house-deve...
> From what I can gather, the total may be double the quoted number.
You don't have to guess. You can find the actual number in the 4th quarter report on page 12:
http://media.opera.com/media/finance/2012/4Q12.pdf
The 90 or so people who decided to leave (some couldn't accept the technology change) or were laid off included not only engineers (QA and development), but also marketing, sales, and other departments.
I read somewhere that about half of the people leaving were engineers. Since engineers make up the majority of the company, it actually seems like the development teams weren't hit as hard as non-development teams.
> In addition, morale is at rock bottom, with a number of people leaving on their own. Opera as we knew it is gone.
I think some people were offered voluntary severance packages. I'm guessing that some were disappointed by the move to WebKit, and this was a golden opportunity for them to move on to something else. Those who remain, then, should be committed to the new engine (and those who remain are the vast majority, as far a I can tell).
I don't know about morale being at rock bottom. It's pretty liberating to not have to deal with those site compatibility problems (to such an extent) anymore. Morale usually increases when people get to do cool things instead of grinding on the same old compatibility problems forever. Of course, downsizings are never fun, but I've been through probably 5 or 6 of them in my years at Opera. People get over it eventually.
Is the Opera you knew gone? That depends on what the Opera you knew was. The company has been under constant change for as long as I've been here at least. With the growth of the company and the changes in the market in general, that is quite inevitable.
> In the 2010 downsizing (described by the HR VP as "rightsizing"), they at least tried to make the decisions look good internally, blaming the economic downturn. The last two rounds they didn't even bother. No explainations, just individual talks - and a wave of fear.
We had a department meeting, and to their credit, they actually told the affected people right away. They didn't have to wait for days or weeks to hear the judgment, which is what happened under the previous management.
As for reasons, the change in technology is obvious. Then there's the acquisition of Skyfire which seems to be the biggest one in Opera's history. It's going to cost a lot of money, so it seems logical that the company wishes to save money where they can.
> My loyalty is to my old team and the technology - not the current mismanagement.
In a comment elsewhere you started that the switch to WebKit was the inevitable result of Opera's past missteps. Does that not mean that you are actually arguing that the change done by the current management is caused by the mistakes of the former management which you now praise? That the former "good management" actually forced the hands of the current "bad management" with its mistakes?
Just an observation.