It's all about speed (and design)

I am now using Opera 9.0 as my default browser on my PowerBook G4. Way faster than Safari 2.0 and Firefox 2.0. No more hard-disk spinning hassle, no more huge cache to be deleted periodically, and a amazingly fast 'recovery' function. Pretty cool stuff. I am now enjoying Web surfing again (and blogging, by the way ;-).
This experience brings me back to last Tuesday. I've been demonstrating some optical network test solution from Agilent Technologies : the 6-years old Mini-OTDR (so-called the Mini-C), and its 6-years old PC software companion " Toolkit ". My client was too switch for another vendor, pushed by the incumbent telco. The reason was that they couldn't edit acceptance tests reports right from the PC software : they were using it at an interface between the OTDR and MS Excel ! Typical lack of * getting started * support from the test gear' supplier, but this is another story (on which I'll come back someday). Hence the waste of time and of confidence into the solution.
As i was used to do for years until 2003 when I left Agilent, I did a quick tour of the whole solution, then a hands-on training, and then a real case operation with them. Outcome : no more switch to the competitor, and a new purchase order to go to the Agilent' rep soon. Beside my legendary charisma (kidding - almost ;-), the principal reason for the decision by the client to stay with his actual supplier is that this 6-yo solution is still faster than its rivals, should they be products released in 2005.
Why that ? How come a product which was developed at a time when Windows 98 was the standard and 64MB the maximum capacity for compact Flash cards still beat state-of-the-art machines and software ? Simple : it was developed with the end-users, for the end-users. Right from the beginning, those two products (the Mini-C and the Toolkit software) were designed to fit the customers' s needs : speed and ease of use.
That is exactly what I am experiencing with Opera : it has been designed right from the start to be fast and easy to use. Add the numerous features that you normally get as freeware and/or shareware add-ons on the other platforms, and you get the perfect fit.