Already a licensee of Qt, the company plans to expand Qt to new platforms, including Windows 8.
Finnish enterprise software maker Digia has acquired the Qt software technologies and business from Nokia, and thankfully, the remaining staff. Nokia had been in the process of shutting down offices in preparation for the sale, but Digia will still get a bunch of bodies.
Digia acquired the Qt Commercial licensing business from Nokia in March 2011 and has grown it since. Following the close of the acquisition, Digia plans to expand Qt to new platforms, including Android, iOS and Windows 8 platforms.
RELATED: Nokia preps to sell Qt, but not before Elop screws it up
Leaked Windows Phone 8 SDK brings app surprises
As part of the transaction, a maximum of 125 Qt people from Nokia will transfer to Digia, mostly based in Oslo, Norway, and Berlin, Germany. Trolltech, the original developer of Qt, was based in Oslo.
While the deal closes, Digia is encouraging all current ecosystem members to continue working on improving Qt with the assurance that Digia will continue to invest in Qt as the leading cross-platform development framework. Among the projects, Digia plans to work on a successful release of Qt5 and is committed to continuing the Qt Project in order to maintain Qt’s availability under both open source and commercial licenses.
“We are looking forward to welcoming the Qt team to Digia. By adding this world-class organization to our existing team we plan to build the next-generation leading cross-platform development environment,” said Tommi Laitinen, senior vice president of International Products Digia, in a statement.
“Now is a good time for everyone to revisit their perception of Qt. Digia’s targeted R&D investments will bring back focus on Qt’s desktop and embedded platform support, while widening the support for mobile operating systems,” added Laitinen.
More information will be available shortly on qt.digia.com and qt-project.org, which will be the main information-sharing sites for Qt. It sure is good to see Qt in the hands of a capable and ambitious firm. Shame it didn’t happen sooner.
