I guess this makes sense if you look at it from a phone/tablet manufacturers perspective: A manufacturer wouldn't necessarily have the desire to implement thei

I guess this makes sense if you look at it from a phone/tablet manufacturers perspective: A manufacturer wouldn't necessarily have the desire to implement their own browser on top of webkit so they want a company (rules out Mozilla) that will support a web browser on their phone without also being a competitor. The problem I think is that the non-aligned phone manufacturers are going the way of the dodo. You have Nokia committing to WM8, Apple on iOS with Safari and most others committing to Android. In theory a manufacturer could go Android + Opera but why license Opera when you can get Chrome for free? That being said: Opera has always done a great job fighting against massive odds. I hope this move gives them the breathing room they need to keep going.