Nokia has announced that it is selling its Qt commercial licensing and services business to Finnish software services company Digia in a deal that takes effect at the end of March.

Given that Nokia partnered with Microsoft last month, it probably makes sense for it to start to reduce its involvement in the Qt framework, the platform it acquired from Trolltech just over three years ago, in January 2008.

In fact, Nokia is by no means dropping Qt altogether at this point in time. Qt is a dual-licensed project with free use licensed under the LGPL and the commercial license which is being transferred to Digia only affects some 3,500 customers and hasn't been a "core business activity" for Nokia since the introduction of the LGPL license.

According to Nokia Vice President, Sebastian Nyström:

"Qt continues to be an important technology for Nokia and it is critical that Qt's growth and success can continue. .. 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".

On the other hand making Nokia's move can be interpreted as being a response to Microsoft's insistence that it makes Windows Phone its principal platform.

See also:

Nokia goes Windows Phone 7