In a column yesterday by TheStreet, a financial news provider, columnist Tero Kuittinen emphatically endorsed Opera’s mobile efforts over its biggest competitor.

His column, titled “Opt for Opera Over Openwave“, talks about Opera and Openwave, which is probably the biggest provider of mobile browsers, and the future of the mobile browsing market.

In addition to making mobile browsers, Openwave also makes the software and applications that run the phone. I believe Opera is not too far behind on this.

I see Opera becoming a virtual OS on mobile phones and devices. With the power of the ‘Opera Platform’ and Widgets, all mobile phone applications can theoretically run on just the browser. The phone menu, for example, could be implemented as a webpage or even a Widget. Applications and games could either be implemented in Java (which most are already) or simply as a Widget. (I will elaborate on this idea more in a future post discussing why and how Opera Widgets came about).

As much as Opera needs the tech community to be behind it, it still needs the business community as well. Ultimately, the business executives will be the ones who approve deals with companies such as Opera. Opera needs to be seen as a viable partner on the business side too.

Following are excerpts from the column:

“Even if the browser market can’t sustain specialist companies in the long run (which is likely), the mobile browser could be on the verge of mutating into something far more intriguing than PC browsers: We may soon bear witness to the painful birth of multitasking applets that closely integrate mobile music, game, video and messaging.”

“I believe that Opera is better positioned than Openwave to address the possible new shift in the mobile-software market. The Norwegian company has recently made waves on various fronts. Its compact, new, low-end mobile browser, Opera Mini, is getting great reviews in Scandinavia and may be on the verge of wider distribution in Asia and Europe.”

“I think Opera’s expansion into the mass market holds more promise than Openwave’s attempt to grow beyond its core market of low-end browsers and software integration for small phone vendors and operators.”

“The ultimate goal here is to continue developing simple, tiny applets while inching toward the holy grail of an integrated browser/search engine/messaging/music/game application that is sleek and intuitive enough for tiny phone screens. I’m betting Opera has a better shot at this than Openwave.”

“In my discussions with operator product-development people and mobile-content specialists, I have heard strong enthusiasm about the quality and innovation of Opera R&D. Nintendo is a notoriously fussy and demanding partner — its choice of Opera as a browser partner is an important endorsement.”

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