Facebook could pay over $1 billion for Opera: analysts

Takeover talk pushed advanced mobile phone software company’s shares up as much as 26 per cent on Tuesday

ZURIC

The good news is that we are nowhere near 1999 levels in terms of Internet company hype and excessive valuations. The bad news is that we are seeing the same types of froth, just to a lesser degree, that we saw back then. More than a decade ago we were wondering how Yahoo (YHOO) was worth more than Disney (DIS) and the market eventually corrected that inefficiency (today’s values: Disney $76B, Yahoo $18B).

Opera Mini web-browsing software for smartphones has become an antidote for congested telecom networks and carrier bills that rise along with the amount of data streamed to handsets.As the popularity of smartphones and tablets continues to surge and telecom carriers shy away from all-you-can-eat wireless data plans, Opera is wooing users with technology that minimizes bytes of data streamed over the air.

By Dividend Screen:Everybody is talking about Facebook and the $104 billion market valuation at revenues of nearly $4 billion. But, what happens if Facebook's growth slows before the company reaches the $100 billion mark in revenues? You will never get your investment back.

Ockham Research submits: On Thursday, Palm Inc (PALM) reported results for the quarter that ended in February that were quite a disappointment to the market and one analyst in particular. Excluding one-time charges, the mobile handset maker lost $102.8 million, or $.61 cents per share, which was much wider than the $.42 cents expected by Wall Street.

More iPhone users now browse the web with Opera Mini than with than with the iPhone’s default Safari browser