Nothing offical has been annouced at this time but there is a rumour floating around the interweb that Microsoft may have bought Opera. Reading around several sites there seems to be a lot speculation and its hard to see if there is actually any real fact behind this story. It does make you wonder why MS could want to buy Opera though. Could they benfit from owning the browser that brought us tabbed browsing? Or could the significant development that Opera has had be useful for fast tracking IE7+ development. After all MS has never really put much into developing its browsers, so cutting corners so they get back to their core money making products doesn't sound implausible.

Opera will bring a significant number of things to the table for Microsoft. First and foremost, Opera will help compete against Firefox, the biggest threat to Microsoft's Internet Explorer currently. Even though Opera doesn't actively hold significant market share, Microsoft's marketing efforts will more or less change its position. Moreover, Opera was the first tabbed browser to debut and it's far more advanced in terms of development than Internet Explorer.

Perhaps the most desirable feature that Opera has to offer is its mobile version of the browser. Thus far, it's the best mobile browser currently on portable devices, and it will surely give Microsoft an easy entry into the mobile market, especially as that market continues to flourish gradually.

Since the acquisition is almost complete, we should hear something officially from Microsoft in the very near future.
CoolTechZone.com

I expect we won't have to wait too long to find out if this is true.