The Qt Company

The Qt Company
Public
Traded as Nasdaq Helsinki: QTCOM
Industry Computer software
Founded 4 March 1994 (as Trolltech)
Founders
  • Eirik Chambe-Eng
  • Haavard Nord

[1]

Headquarters Espoo, Finland[2]
Area served
 Worldwide
Key people
  • Juha Varelius (CEO)
  • Mika Harjuaho (CFO)
  • Lars Knoll (CTO)

[3]

Products Qt, Qt Creator, Qbs
Revenue €26.9 million (2015)[4]
€1.8 million (2015)[4]
Number of employees
 200 (As of June 2016)[4]
Website www.qt.io

The Qt Company (formerly known as Digia, Qt, Qt Development Frameworks, Qt Software, Trolltech and as Quasar Technologies) is a software company based in Espoo, Finland. It oversees the development of its Qt application framework within the Qt Project.

It has core R&D in Oslo, Norway as well as large engineering teams in Berlin, Germany and Oulu, Finland. The Qt Company operates in China, Finland, Germany, Norway, Russia, Korea and the United States.[2]

Products

The company provides software development platforms and frameworks, as well as expert consulting services. Its flagship product is Qt, a multi-platform Graphical User Interface (GUI) framework written in C++. Qt is popular with application developers using C++ but is supported by bindings for other programming languages too, such as Python. Qt also includes packages such as data structures and a networking library. The popular, Free, and cross-platform KDE Plasma desktop environment and software compilation uses Qt library. The company also employs several KDE developers.

In 2001 Trolltech introduced Qtopia which is based on Qt. Qtopia is an application platform for Linux-based devices such as mobile phones, portable media players, and home media. It is also used in many non-consumer products such as medical instruments and industrial devices. Qtopia Phone Edition was released in 2004, and their Greenphone smartphone is based on this platform.

History

Trolltech was founded by Eirik Chambe-Eng and Haavard Nord on 4 March 1994. They started writing Qt in 1991, and since then Qt has steadily expanded and improved. Trolltech completed an initial public offering (IPO) on the Oslo Stock Exchange in July, 2006.

On 28 January 2008, Nokia Corporation announced that they had entered into an agreement that Nokia would make a public voluntary tender offer to acquire Trolltech.[5] The total cost for Nokia was approximately € 104 million.[6] On 5 June 2008 Nokia’s voluntary tender offer was approved for all the shares in Trolltech. By 17 June 2008, Nokia had completed its acquisition of Trolltech. On 30 September 2008, Trolltech was renamed as Qt Software, and Qtopia was renamed as Qt Extended. On 11 August 2009, the company's name was changed to Qt Development Frameworks.[7]

Nokia sold the commercial licensing business of Qt to Digia on March 2011.[8] In September 2012, all remaining Qt business was transferred to Digia.[9]

In September 2014, Digia Plc. announced that it formed "The Qt Company", a wholly owned subsidiary, to drive forth Qt development and market expansion.[10]

In May 2016, The Qt Company announced its demerger from Digia Plc. and began trading on the NASDAQ Helsinki stock exchange as QTCOM.[11]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "20 Years of Qt Code". Retrieved 10 June 2016.
  2. 1 2 "Office Locations". Retrieved 10 June 2016.
  3. ↑ "The Qt Company Management". Retrieved 10 June 2016.
  4. 1 2 3 "Financials - Qt for Investors". Retrieved 10 June 2016.
  5. ↑ "Nokia to acquire Trolltech to accelerate software strategy". 28 January 2008. Retrieved 28 January 2008.
  6. ↑ "Nokia ostaa norjalaisen ohjelmistoyrityksen" (in Finnish). 28 January 2008. Retrieved 28 January 2008.
  7. ↑ "New name, new domain announced for Qt Development Frameworks". 11 August 2009. Retrieved 18 August 2009.
  8. ↑ Lawton, Christopher (7 March 2011). "Nokia to Sell Qt Business". Wall Street Journal.
  9. ↑ "About Digia, Qt".
  10. ↑ "Digia Announces The Qt Company, Launches a Unified Website and Unleashes a €20 Indie Mobile Monthly Subscription Plan". 16 September 2014. Retrieved 10 June 2016.
  11. ↑ "NASDAQ Helsinki Welcomes Qt Group Plc". 4 May 2016. Retrieved 10 June 2016.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/26/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.