News: Digia to buy Nokia's Qt commercial licensing business

If you needed further proof that Nokia is putting Symbian and MeeGo on the back-burner to focus on developing Windows Phone OS devices, then consider the fact that the company is disposing of the commercial rights to its Qt developer platform.

Software firm Digia has announced that it has signed an agreement with Nokia to acquire the Qt commercial licensing and services business. This proposed deal is expected to be concluded by the end of this month and will include about 3500 desktop and embedded customer companies from various industries that will be transferred to Digia.

Nokia’s sole cross-platform application and UI development framework Qt (pronounced “cute”), enables app developers to create an application and then deploy it to devices running on Symbian and MeeGo platforms amongst others. Nokia also creates its own applications and user interfaces (UI) on Qt as well.

Sebastian Nyström, VP and head of MeeGo, Qt & WebKit for Nokia announced via a blogpost that the company’s Qt technical support team will support Digia for the next year. Nokia will be working with Digia to deliver a smooth transition of all licenses and commercial relationships.

As part of this deal, some of Nokia’s technical consulting services team and members of the Nokia Qt Commercial sales and marketing team will become part of Digia. These employees will continue to be based at their current locations in Norway and the US.

“We want to emphasize our long-term commitment to Qt. Nokia will drive Qt developments in support of our business needs and our investments in community building, marketing and R&D will continue to benefit all members of the Qt community,” Nyström stated.

“By introducing the up-coming open governance model we will also enable other companies, such as Digia, to more easily contribute to Qt, which will enrich Nokia investments in Qt and benefit and grow the Qt community as a whole.”

Digia to buy Nokia's Qt commercial licensing business

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