Nokia to acquire Qt business from Nokia, port it to Android and iOS
Finnish software company Digia announced today that it is acquiring the Qt software business from Nokia. Digia plans to pick up where Nokia left off: continuing Qt development, but renewing the toolkit’s focus on cross-platform support. The financial terms of the agreement have not been disclosed.
Qt is an open source software development toolkit that was originally created by Norwegian software company Trolltech. Nokia acquired Trolltech in 2008 and subsequently transitioned Qt to an open governance model and a more permissive licensing scheme. Nokia had originally intended to use Qt to provide a unified development framework that would work across Symbian and MeeGo.
Nokia’s decision to abandon its existing mobile platforms in favor of Windows Phone 7 raised some questions about what the failing phone giant would do with Qt. Rumors that the toolkit would soon be sold surfaced earlier this month, alongside news that Nokia was shutting down Qt offices in Australia. In our coverage, we noted that Digia, which acquired the Qt commercial licensing business from Nokia last year, was a likely candidate for buying the remaining Qt assets.