Nokia banks on Qt to boost app development

Stuart Corner
Monday, 25 October 2010 09:31

IT Industry - Strategy

Nokia is banking on the Qt application development framework to ensure a steady supply of future apps from developers for both the Symbian and MeeGo platforms, saying the decision "will ensure that applications will continue to be compatible with future evolutions of Symbian as well as upcoming MeeGo products.

Nokia says it will demonstrate its commitment to Qt by developing its own future applications using Qt "for a more consistent experience and better integration of applications and services." It has also announced its intent to support HTML5 for development of Web content and applications for both Symbian and MeeGo platforms.

The moves are part of a major shake-up announced this week as Nokia seeks to counter the rapidly growing strength of Apple, Android and emerging threats from new smartphone platforms like Windows Phone 7 and HP's WebOS 2.0, the just released llatest version of the former Palm operating system.

The changes will see Nokia shed 1800 jobs worldwide and restructure it services organisation to "focus on delivering an integrated Ovi experience across our full range of devices," rather than being organised around distinct end-to-end service lines. Nokia said it was also cutting back certain corporate functions and corporate research activities, but did not give details.

According to Wikipedia, Qt (officially pronounced 'cute', but often referred to as QT) is a cross-platform application framework that is widely used for developing application software with graphical user interfaces, most notably in Autodesk, Google Earth, KDE, Adobe Photoshop Album, the European Space Agency, OPIE, Skype, VLC media player, Samsung, Philips, Panasonic and VirtualBox.

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