Google buying Opera?

Some friends and contacts at Google apologized today for the uncharacteristic delay in replying to some ongoing correspondence. They were all quick to point out, unprovoked, that they've all been "working on something really big relative to an announcement in early 2006", but they're diametrically unwavering in not saying anything else about it.

The Rumorville buzz around the blogosphere is that Google's buying Opera. Whoa. That would be huge. Reportedly an Opera official denied the claim, dismissing it as myth. But this would be a very logical progression for Google, giving it core control of the infrastucture with which people access its applications and, subsequently, the World Wide Web. This would also allow Google to also get more involved in the mobile space, which I've stated that it needs to do more of.

But depsite my best journalistic snooping and cyber-sleuthing, I can't lend any more credence to the story, so it's still a RUMOR.

(Read what the mammoth theoretical implications of this acquisition could be.)