Digia has acquired the Qt framework from Nokia, giving it full control over the application framework, and now plans to expand support to more platforms, it said.
Digia, based in Finland, started taking over Qt in March 2011 when it purchased Nokia's Qt commercial licensing and services business. The latest deal means Digia is responsible for all Qt activities including product development, as well as the commercial and open source licensing, the company said.
Qt is a cross-platform application and user interface framework designed to let developers write and deploy applications across desktop, mobile and embedded operating systems without rewriting source code.
One of Digia's first priorities will be to allow Qt-based applications to run on Android, iOS and Microsoft's upcoming Windows 8 platform, although it hasn't said how long it expects that to take. Today Qt can be used to create applications for Linux, Mac OS X, Windows and Symbian.
Digia will decide whether to port the framework to Windows Phone 8 in the coming months, a spokesman said via e-mail.
Digia will also be pushing to deliver Qt 5 on time. The final release of the new version of the framework is expected to arrive in September, according to the Qt project website.
No financial details of the deal were announced, but as part of the transaction, a maximum of 125 people will transfer from Nokia will to Digia. Most of them are based in Oslo and Berlin Digia said.
Since Digia acquired Nokia's Qt Commercial licensing, the business has grown substantially and Digia expects it be profitable in 2012.
Nokia acquired the Qt framework when it bought Norwegian company Trolltech in 2008.
IDG News Service