Unlike Samsung, who are dropping Symbian for bada in 2010, Nokia are sticking with it, announcing the latest version of Qt, their cross platform application and interface structure, this week. Using Qt 4.6 developers can create web-enabled apps once and deploy it for mobile (for example Symbian and Maemo 6), desktop (e.g. Windows 7 and Apple Mac OS 10.6) and embedded operating systems without rewriting the source code. The latest version of Qt also sees the addition of new graphical abilities as well as support for multi-touch.

According to a recent post on the Nokia Conversations blog, “These new developments make Qt a really powerful, and incredibly useful, framework for developing and deploying applications. And as it supports a number of platforms, the incentive is there for developers to make an application once before deploying it to millions of users.”

Qt came about when Nokia bought Trolltech ASA in 2008 to further develop their cross platform software strategy for mobile devices and desktop applications, as well as to develop its Internet services business. Nokia changed the Trolltech name to Qt Development Frameworks, who now develops and markets Qt.