Nokia Sells Qt Licensing And Services

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“We are excited to extend our Qt business to serve our new customers. Building on our in-depth Qt expertise and experience from demanding mission-critical solutions, we will offer world-class commercial licensing and support services to Qt Commercial customers,” Harri Paani, senior vice president of Digia, said in a statement. “We also look forward to driving further the evolution of Qt by bringing in new features and services.”

Nokia technical support

In addition to acquiring the business responsibility over Qt Commercial licensing and services, Digia also plans to employ 19 persons from Nokia’s technical consulting services team and global Qt Commercial sales and marketing teams. The goal is to ensure that the customers will continue to deal with the people they already know.

In his post, Nystrom (pictured) said:

“Although Digia will now be responsible for issuing all Qt Commercial software licenses and for providing dedicated services and support to licensees, Nokia’s Qt technical support team will support and work closely with Digia for the next year. We will now begin work with Digia to ensure a smooth transition of all licenses and commercial relationships.

“As part of the agreement, some members of Nokia’s technical consulting services team, as well as members of the Nokia Qt Commercial sales and marketing team will transition to Digia, ensuring continuity of contacts for customers. Those teams will continue to be based in Norway and in the US, and we will work with Digia to minimize disruption to customers throughout the transition period.”

Digia officials reinforced the company’s intent to invest in the development of Qt as a commercial framework; in particular, the plan is to emphasise Qt in the desktop and embedded environments and to examine new support models and functionality requests. Digia also will provide commercial customers with improvements in support and functionality for older platforms that were not on the Nokia development roadmap. The holders of a Qt commercial license will be informed about the details separately.

Nokia reiterates commitment to Qt

Meanwhile, despite the sale of Qt’s professional services and licensing operations, Nokia still maintains that Qt is a go-to framework for development on its platforms. Nystrom said:

“We want to emphasise our long-term commitment to Qt. Nokia will drive Qt developments in support of our business needs, and our investments in community building, marketing and R&D will continue to benefit all members of the Qt community. By introducing the upcoming 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.

“Overall, I expect that Qt Commercial software licensees and the entire Qt community, including all of our Qt Partners, will benefit from this change. We will continue to actively support the Qt community — including MeeGo — as we are today in activities such as active-developer engagement through our online community site, events, community sponsorship and code sprints. We will also continue to provide training materials and eLearning, Qt certification exams and enhance our Qt Partner, Qt in Education and marketing programs and much more.”

As an additional benefit, this acquisition will further accelerate Digia’s shift toward international, product-based business and broaden the customer base for Digia’s Qt business, the company said. It also provides Digia’s Enterprise Solution business a world-class offering that has strong synergy with Digia’s Mobile Solution business and expertise.