Today Digia Plc. has signed an agreement with Nokia to acquire the Qt commercial licensing and services business. This will mean around 3500 desktop and embedded customer companies from various industries are targeted to be transferred to Digia. The transaction is expected to be closed by the end of March 2011. The success of Qt has in part been due to a successful dual-license model, providing open LGPL and commercial license alternatives.
“Qt continues to be an important technology for Nokia and it is critical that Qt’s growth and success can continue. While Nokia will continue to invest in developing Qt as a cross-platform framework for mobile, desktop and embedded segments, focusing on open source development and expansion, we wanted a partner who can drive the commercial licensing and services business around Qt. Digia has proven, in-depth Qt expertise, operational excellence and a keen interest in growing and improving the overall Qt community and so well positioned to expand the Qt Commercial licensing and services business,” says Sebastian Nyström, Vice President, Head of MeeGo, Qt and Webkit at Nokia.
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. Sebastian Nyström VP, Head of MeeGo, Qt & WebKit Nokia
What does this mean for Nokia + Qt + for the future. No idea. Nokia continue to verbally talk the talk of supporting Qt but also Continue to distance themselves from it, which can confuse even the most hardened Nokia / Qt supporter. There is also interesting talk of the “up-coming open governance model” which we need to see its inner workings before commenting further.
One thing to take solace in is the fact that Digi is an established new technology company and therefore they are not going to be buying a “dead” horse. The future can be bright or even “green” in this instance.
