In the suddenly competitive universe of Internet browsers, Opera deserves some credit. In the late 1990s, the Norwegian software maker offered the first credible alternative to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, which had held the browser market in its smothering embrace. Netscape was fading, but Opera offered hope, and reminded people that you could innovate in the browser.

That first gauntlet toss by Opera seems so yesterday now, with the browser market in full heat. Firefox has seized a 20 percent chunk of what was once Microsoft’s alone. Apple gives away Safari to Windows users. Google has unveiled Chrome and given another glimpse of its vast ambition. IE, which seemed so, ahem, part of the operating system, comes off as clunky when compared to its new slicker, faster peers even while it holds on to 50-70 percent of the market, depending on which survey you read.

Then there’s Opera. With Netscape finally dead, Jon von Tetzchner, the CEO of Opera Software, likes to remind people that, Opera, founded in 1995, is the oldest surviving browser company on the planet. Sometimes people forget to include Opera in the mix of competitors. But if you’re a company based in Oslo, it’s not all that hard to keep a low profile.

Opera’s innovative Windows browser has found popularity in some emerging countries, but it hasn’t grabbed much more than 1 percent of mindshare in the U.S. Now, Mr. von Tetzchner’s long history of paying attention to the mobile phone seems on the brink of paying off. In this arena, Opera is a more important player, benefiting from the emergence of the mobile phone as the primary instrument for communication and its belated convergence with the Internet.  Says Mr. von Tetzchner: “It’s a very exciting time when you think about the browser as the device with which people spend most of the time.”

Opera, with 529 employees in nine countries, reached record revenue of 113 million kroner ($17.2 million) in the first half of 2008. Net income of 27.2 million kroner ($4.16 million) for the first six months of 2008 is a nice turnaround from a 5.5 million kroner loss in the first half of last year. “They’ve taken control of the costs,” says Hallgeir Hollup, an analyst at Norwegian investment bank  ABG Sundal Collier, crediting the company’s new CFO Eric Carlson Harrell. The company is listed on the Oslo stock exchange and recently traded at around 14 kroner, down in the general market decline from a 2008 high of 25 in June.

Growth has come in both desktop and mobile products but internet devices, as Opera calls them, accounted for 80 percent of revenue increase.  “People were saying you don’t want to browse the ‘Net on the mobile phone,” says Mr. von Tetzchner. “We’ve been saying, that is not true, we made that service available.”  Opera’s browsers have the reputation of being fleet and lean, and of working on a wide range of phones and networks.

Despite Apple’s claims, web browsing with a mobile was possible before the iPhone – if not as easy. But with more powerful mobile devices, bigger screens, and faster networks, browsing the web on something other than an iPhone is no longer a form of waterboarding. Opera Mobile and its free version, Opera Mini, work on hundreds of phone models. Mr. von Tetzchner says the attention to the iPhone and discussions about browsers have gotten him more downloads, which is how most people first get to try Opera’s products. “To some extent the catalyst has been the iPhone,”says Mr. Hollup. “A lot of operators realized how quickly Apple was able to generate traffic and they saw a route to more revenue.”

But a lot of sales growth has come from a renewed focused on the OEM business, including license deals with carriers like O2 , Vodafone and T-Mobile as well as major handset manufacturers, including Nokia, Samsung, and Motorola. The company has also strayed to other devices, including the hit Nintendo Wii game console and set-top boxes. “We see the Internet as one thing,” says Mr. von Tetzchner.  “Our focus has been on cross-platform since 1997.”

Opera also benefits from the new focus on services provided through the Internet. “The easiest way to program an application is to use web technology,” he says.  The company recently released a study of the browsing habits of some 17 million unique users of the Opera Minis  mobile browser and reported that they viewed 4.1 billion web pages in August, an average of 242 pages per user.  

Of course, rising demand for mobile browsing means there will be more competitors – some with very deep pockets. Mozilla, which develops Firefox, announced early in 2008 it was working on a mobile version. One can be sure that Google’s Android coalition will spawn at least one. Microsoft continues to make steady progress with Windows Mobile. But in a market of 3 billion handsets, Opera only has to capture its fair share to maintain its momentum.