Nokia ready sell its Qt software business to Finnish IT services firm Digia Oyj

The software is used by some 450,000 developers for making applications for some 70 industries and up to 125 employees working on developing and licensing the Qt software will move from Nokia to Digia, the companies said on Thursday.

Digia said it planned to make Qt available for making applications for Apple’s (AAPL.O) iOS platform, Google’s (GOOG.O) Android and Microsoft Windows 8.

From left: Jari Pasanen, Kari Karvinen, Martti Mehtälä, Pekka Sivonen, Pertti Kyttälä. Not in the picture: Heikki Mäkijärvi.

Helsinki, Finland and Santa Clara, US – August 9th 2012,

Digia, the software powerhouse listed on the NASDAQ OMX Helsinki exchange
(DIG1V), today announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire Qt software
technologies and Qt business from Nokia. Following the acquisition Digia becomes responsible for all the Qt activities formerly carried out by Nokia. These include product development, as well as the commercial and open source licensing and service business. Following the acquisition, Digia plans to quickly enable Qt on Android, iOS and Windows 8 platforms.

Digia forecasts the acquisition’s impact on its 2012 revenues to be positive. In the following years, Digia forecasts the Qt business to grow. As part of the transaction, a maximum of 125 Qt people from Nokia will transfer to Digia, mostly based in Oslo, Norway and Berlin, Germany. This business transaction will significantly strengthen
Digia’s product business and supports Digia’s strategic objective to grow internationally.

“We are looking forward to welcoming the Qt team to Digia. By adding this world class organization to our existing team we plan to build the next generation leading cross-platform development environment.” said Tommi Laitinen, SVP, International Products, 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.”

“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.”