Nokia has finally decided to let Qt go, for the better of both. We knew it was going to happen sooner than later. Seen as a “non core” business, it was only a formal announcement that was awaited from Nokia.
Digia will acquire the Qt developer tools business from Nokia, and it will take on product development, as well as the commercial and open source licensing and services business supporting Qt.
While Qt was portrayed as missing “genetic link” between OSes, targeted mainly as the savior of developers who could easily target devices powered by both Symbian OS and MeeGo, Nokia could never fully utilize it’s potential.
But for the developer community, this transition may actually prove to save Qt. While Digia plans to quickly enable Qt on Android, iOS and Windows 8 platforms, Nokia has certainly missed to see the silver lining on the clouds – making Qt as the sole cross-platform development framework.
Tommi Laitinen, SVP of International Products at Digia was quoted saying:
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.
Though the price of the deal is still unknown, it is rumored that Digia will pay a fraction of the US$150 million Nokia paid to acquire Trolltech, the creators of Qt. Also, about 125 Nokia staff will transfer to Digia as a result, mainly in Norway and Germany.
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