Nokia Corporation (NOK)

[Eric]

Nokia's Qt Commercial Licensing and Professional Services Acquired by Digia ...

Some sources have read this news as Nokia's abandonment of Qt. It is not, by any stretch. Qt is both the incorporated runtime and development framework for both current and evolved Symbian^3 and the Nokia's MeegO project which has temporarily been moved back burner. All core development and LGPL licensing of Qt remains with Nokia.

>> Digia To Acquire Commercial Licensing and Professional Services Arm of Qt

Rafe Blandford
All About Symbian
March 7th 2011

http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/news/item/12651_Digia_to_acquire_commercial_li.php

Digia, a Finnish software company, has signed an agreement with Nokia to acquire the commercial licensing and professional services arm of Nokia's Qt. The major portion of Qt, including all core development and LGPL licensing remains with Nokia. Nokia plans to continue to invest in the future development of Qt, which remains core to its Symbian (150 million additional devices) and MeeGo (future disruptions) activities. The acquisition is expected to close by the end of the month; neither company are disclosing cost details.

The move will provide reassurance to Qt Commercial Licensees who understandably felt that mobile was a more important focus for Nokia than desktop and embedded based solutions (the areas in which the majority of these licensees operate). It also makes it very clear that Nokia is committed to the future development of Qt. By signing this agreement with Digia, together with existing activities around Qt open contribution and governance, Nokia is signalling its intention to continue to develop Qt, while also providing a feasible and sustainable way for other companies to build products and solutions around the Qt framework.

Qt licensing and Professional Services

For commercial development Qt is currently available under two licenses: the Qt Commercial Developer License ('paid') and the Qt GNU LGP 2.1 License ('free'). The LGPL option was added two years ago, following on from Nokia's acquisition of Trolltech and reflected Nokia's desire to encourage uptake of Qt.

The Qt Commercial Developer License, which originated as a revenue generator prior to Nokia's acquisition of Trolltech, is used by more than 3,500 companies worldwide and estimated to be around 5% of commercial Qt development (percentage of licensees). This is because it is not feasible or acceptable to use an open source license (LGPL) in some industries (e.g. aerospace and defence) for business reasons or because of the need to provide product warranties (e.g. pharmaceutical and medical). Complimentary to the commercial licensing is the professional services business, which provides technical support to Qt licensees.

It is worth noting that commercial development based on the LGPL license, which is estimated to be around 95% of commercial Qt developer activity, is unaffected by this announcement. This includes almost all of the developers working on Symbian and MeeGo applications. Nokia remains the driving force behind Qt and it's core development and will continue to provide Qt through the LGPL license. However both commercial licensing and professional services are not considered a core business for Nokia. Qt is an enabling technology for Nokia, rather than a revenue generator. Nokia made a similar move when it acquired Symbian in 2009; it sold the Symbian Professional Services unit to Accenture.

As a result of this announcement nineteen Nokia employees from the Oslo and Silicon Valley offices will be transferring to Digia to provide a continuity of services with existing customers. They are drawn from the current Qt sales and marketing team and Nokia technical services team and represent less than 10% of the Qt workforce.

Digia will takeover responsibility for commercial licensing and professional services for both new and existing customers. Furthermore it will provide continuity of development for desktop and embedded Qt functionality and will look to create new service models. This is likely to include support for porting Qt to platforms that were not on Nokia's Qt roadmap. This will compliment Nokia's on-going Qt development, which has a mobile focus. It is very likely that Digia will contribute elements back into Qt as part of Qt's open contribution and governance model.

Nokia remains committed to on-going development of Qt. It plays a vital role for the Symbian platform where it is the primary development environment and will be the enabling technology for a number of software and user interface updates that are expected to arrives in the next 12 months. Similarly Qt is the underlying technology for user experience and developers in Nokia's first MeeGo device, which is expected to ship later this year. MeeGo and Qt will be the key technologies in the third pillar of Nokia's overall software strategy, which is designed to address future disruptions.

Sebastian Nyström, Vice President, Head of MeeGo, Qt and Webkit at Nokia:

"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."

Harri Paani, Senior Vice President from Digia:

"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. We also look forward to driving further the evolution of Qt by bringing in new features and services."

Further information is available on the Qt Labs Blog and on Digia's website. ###.

>> Nokia and Digia Working Together To Grow the Qt Community

Sebastian Nyström
VP, Head of MeeGo, Qt & WebKit: Nokia
March 7, 2011

http://blog.qt.nokia.com/2011/03/07/nokia-and-digia-working-together/

Following last week’s releases of Qt Quick, the new Qt SDK 1.1 beta and Qt 4.7.2, the Qt community will continue to benefit for years to come from further Nokia investment in Qt, primarily focused on areas such as Qt Quick, Qt WebKit and HTLM5 in addition to the ongoing work of improving performance and stability.

The success of Qt has in part been due to a successful dual-license model, providing open LGPL and commercial license alternatives which have enabled a dynamic community of developers in 70 industries to drive a rapid evolution of the Qt cross-platform application and UI framework. The Qt Commercial licensing business is growing and has around 3500 companies, whose development and use of Qt benefits the whole community.

Many organizations which want to use Qt for their business applications choose commercial licenses, for a variety of reasons. These include restrictions in using open source licensed software in industries such as defense & aerospace, or the need to provide product warranties & indemnities such as in the medical device industry. Others choose a commercial relationship for access to Qt professional support and services to ensure successful development of their projects.

However, these professional services are not core business activities for Nokia, so since the introduction of the LGPL license for Qt in 2009 we have been actively working to grow the number of companies providing Qt services. In 2010 we began the search for a company we could work with to serve the commercial licensees in the Qt community. We have now concluded that search and chosen to work with Digia. As a consequence, Digia will acquire the Qt Commercial software licensing and professional services business from Nokia, with the transaction expected to close by the end of March 2011.

Employing hundreds of Qt experts, Digia has 7 years experience in providing top-class Qt competence, and is dedicated to continue and grow Qt Commercial relationships as well as to contribute innovation to the overall Qt LGPL and commercial community.

We expect Digia providing Qt Commercial customers with the support, professional services, and product enhancements that commercial customers require because:

• The business is aligned with Digia’s strategy and business model.

• Digia has the incentives, expertise and commitment to serve and grow the commercial license and services business.

• Nokia and the Digia already have a close relationship and will cooperate in improving Qt as well as in creating developer events, new demos etc.

You can learn more about Digia and their Qt related services at qt.partner-directory/digia.

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 will invest significant resources in the ongoing development of Qt as a commercial framework. In particular, their plans include emphasizing Qt in the desktop and embedded environments and exploring new support models and feature requests. Commercial customers can also expect improvements in support and functionality for older platforms that were not on the Nokia development roadmap. If you are a holder of a Qt commercial license you can expect to hear more about this soon.

We want to emphasize 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 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.

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. ###

- Eric -.