First IPO and public company
In February 2004, Opera announced it was preparing for an initial public offering on the Oslo Stock Exchange in March. On 11 March, Opera's IPO opened, trading under the symbol OPERA.
In 2004, Opera settled a lawsuit with an "international corporation" paying US$12.75 million to Opera. It was speculated that the "international corporation" named in the statement announcing the settlement was Microsoft, which had previously blocked Opera users from correctly viewing MSN.com.
On 12 January 2005, Opera announced that it would offer free licenses to higher education institutions — a change from the previous cost of US$1,000 for unlimited licenses. Schools that opted for the free license included Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard University, University of Oxford, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Duke University.
With version 8.5 (released in 2005) the advertisements were removed entirely and primary financial support came through revenue from Google (Opera's default search engine). In August 2005, the company introduced Opera Mini, a new Java ME based web browser for mobile phones originally marketed not to end users but to mobile network operators to pre-load on phones or offer for their subscribers. In 2007, Opera filed a complaint against Microsoft in the European Commission, alleging that bundling Internet Explorer with Microsoft Windows is harmful to both the consumer and to other web browser companies. The complaint resulted in the creation of BrowserChoice.eu.
In 2011, development directors Rolf Assev and Christen Krogh, decided to quit Opera to try something new.
In 2012, Opera and Bharti Airtel signed an agreement to provide Opera Mini browsers to Airtel mobile customers. In 2013 Opera decided to not use their in-house rendering engine for the Desktop Browser anymore. From Version 15, the Opera browser for computers would be using the Blink rendering engine, a fork of Webkit developed together with Google.
In March 2015, Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Opera won Global Mobile Award of Best Mobile Product, Initiative or Service in Emerging Markets for Opera Web Pass and Sponsored Web Pass. In April Opera decided to centre development of the Opera Desktop browser in Poland. On 12 April, Opera TV AS (now Vewd Software AS) was established to separate TV-related business from all other assets, which became part of Opera; both companies became wholly owned subsidiaries of Opera Software ASA (now Otello). In September, the company announced a rebrand with a new three-dimensional "O" logo and brand identity. In the process, the company logotype changed from "Opera Software" to "Opera".
