The Qt Company today celebrates the 20th birthday of Qt, the leading independent framework for cross-platform UI and application development. Created by developers for developers and released for the first time on May 20, 1995 with version 0.90, Qt now boasts a user base of over 800K. With version 5.5 due to be introduced shortly, The Qt Company announces this important milestone promising that, as throughout Qt’s history, the top priority remains making the developer’s life easier by providing endless cross-platform development possibilities by simply reusing the same code.
Initially developed by Haavard Nord (Trolltech, Qt Co-founder) and Eirik Chambe-Eng (Trolltech, Qt co-founder), the Qt framework first became publicly available in May 1995. While working together on a C++ database application for ultrasound images able to run with a GUI on Unix, Macintosh, and Windows, Haavard realised that an object-oriented display system was needed. The resulting discussion laid the intellectual foundation for the object-oriented cross-platform GUI framework they would soon go on to build. From day one the framework was available under two licenses, a free edition and a commercial one for, respectively, open source and commercial development and one of Qt’s first customers was the European Space Agency.
In February 2011, Digia, a key Qt Nokia partner, acquired the commercial licensing part of Qt. Later, in September 2012, Digia acquired the full Qt business and intellectual property from Nokia (which had acquired Trolltech in 2008) and in 2014 formed The Qt Company, a solely owned entity of Digia, to further develop and expand the Qt technology.
“Since Trolltech’s birth, Qt’s popularity has grown unabated and continues to grow to this day,” comments Lars Knoll, The Qt Company, CTO and Qt Project Chief Maintainer. “This success is a reflection both of the quality of Qt and of how enjoyable it is to use. In the last decade, Qt has gone from being a product used by a select few “in the know” to one that is used daily by thousands of customers and tens of thousands of open source developers all around the world.”
Qt powers cross-platform software development with over 70+ industries developing Qt-based products on desktop, embedded and mobile operating systems. 5 out of 10 Fortune 500 companies, as well as key players all around the world in segments such as automotive, consumer electronics, medical, entertainment and industrial automation, have built their product with Qt. Out-of-the-box Qt can be used to create custom SDKs and independent platforms with full ecosystem control with integrated tooling.
The Qt Company today released two videos dedicated to Qt’s 20 year anniversary celebration as well as a gallery of the changing face of Qt logos through the years: http://www.qt.io/qt20/
About The Qt Company
The Qt Company, a subsidiary of Digia Plc. (NASDAQ OMX Helsinki exchange -DIG1V) is responsible for Qt product development, commercialization and licensing under commercial and open-source licenses. Used by over 800,000 developers worldwide, Qt is a C++ based framework of libraries and tools that enables the development of powerful, interactive and cross-platform applications and devices. Qt’s support for multiple desktop, embedded and mobile operating systems allows developers to save significant time related to application and device development by simply reusing one code. Industry leaders such as Navico, ABB, Pitney Bowes, Thales, Michelin, Magneti Marelli and Sennheiser power their products with Qt for their in-vehicle devices, industrial automation applications and mission-critical systems. The Qt Company operates in China, Finland, Germany, Korea, Norway, Russia, Sweden and USA. Code less. Create more. Deploy everywhere. To learn more visit http://qt.io.
About Digia Plc
Since March 2011, Digia Plc, the Helsinki-based services and consulting powerhouse has been the commercial licensor of Qt. In September 2012, Digia acquired the full Qt business and intellectual property from Nokia, and in 2014 formed The Qt Company, a solely owned entity of Digia, to further develop and expand the Qt technology.
