Digia Nears Nokia Qt Software Acqusition

Nokia has sold its Qt software creation platform and related businesses to Digia as part of its ongoing restructuring programme.

These include Qt’s product development, commercial and open source licensing, and servicing businesses.

The troubled Finnish manufacturer recently posted huge losses and is seeking to refocus on its core assets. It recently sold Vertu, its luxury smartphone division, to Swedish equity firm EQT IV.

Nokia QT

“We are looking forward to welcoming the Qt team to Digia. By adding this world class organisation to our existing team we plan to build the next generation leading cross-platform development environment,” said Tommi Laitinen, senior vice president of international products at Digia.

“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.”

Qt has been used by more than 450,000 developers in more than 70 industries to power mission critical applications and UI. Digia said that once the acquisition is completed, it will quickly enable the platform on iOS, Android and Windows Phone.

The company promised it will continue to work with other members of the Qt ecosystem to ensure a successful release of Qt5 and pledged to maintain its availability on both commercial and open source licenses.

“Nokia is proud of the contributions we’ve made to Qt over the past four years. We are pleased that we’ve been able to work with Digia to secure continued development of Qt by the current core team,” said Sebastian Nyström, head of Nokia Strategy. “Digia’s plans to acquire Qt mean that it can continue as a successful open source project and also offer continuing employment for many people in the community.”

In its latest set of results, Nokia recorded losses of £1.1 billion, despite selling four million Lumia smartphones. It has already reduced its workforce by around 10,000 and closed factories in Canada, Germany and its native Finland.

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