The Qt Company

Last updated

Qt Group Plc
Company type Public
Nasdaq Helsinki:  QTCOM
Industry Computer software
Founded4 March 1994 (as Trolltech)
Founders
  • Eirik Chambe-Eng
  • Haavard Nord
[1]
Headquarters
Espoo
,
Finland [2]
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
  • Juha Varelius (CEO) (2008-)
  • Jouni Lintunen (CFO) (2020-)
  • Lars Knoll (CTO) (2012-2022)
[3]
Products Qt, Qt Creator, Qbs, PySide, Coco, Squish, Test Center
Revenue180,743,000 Euro (2023)  OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
47,349,000 Euro (2023)  OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
35,455,000 Euro (2023)  OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Number of employees
775 (2023)  OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Parent Digia
Nokia   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Website www.qt.io

Qt Group Plc (pronounced "cute"; formerly known as Trolltech, Qt Company, Qt Development Frameworks and Qt Software) is a global software company headquartered in Espoo, Finland. It oversees the development of its Qt application framework alongside the Qt Project. It was formed following the acquisition of Qt by Digia, but was later spun off into a separate, publicly traded company.

Contents

It has core R&D in Oslo, Norway, as well as large engineering teams in Berlin, Germany, and Oulu, Finland. The Qt Group operates in China, Finland, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Norway, the US, France, UK, Italy and India. [2]

History

Trolltech 1994–2007

Trolltech was founded by Eirik Chambe-Eng and Haavard Nord on 4 March 1994. [4] They started writing Qt in 1991, and since then Qt has steadily expanded and improved.

In 2002 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. [5] Qtopia Phone Edition was released in 2004, and their Greenphone smartphone is based on this platform.

Trolltech completed an initial public offering (IPO) on the Oslo Stock Exchange in July, 2006. [4]

Part of Nokia 2008–2012

On 28 January 2008, Nokia Corporation announced that they had entered into an agreement to make a public voluntary tender offer to acquire Trolltech. [6] The total cost for Nokia was approximately €104 million. [7] [8] 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. [9]

The Qt environment was a key part of the company's strategy until 2011, when Nokia decided to switch to Windows Phone OS for its smartphones. [10]

Part of Digia 2012–2016

Nokia sold the commercial licensing business of Qt to Digia in March 2011. [11] The following year, Digia acquired the entire Qt development environment and related business from Nokia. As a result of the acquisition, Digia became responsible for all of the functions related to Qt technology, including product development. The main goal of the acquisition was to strengthen Digia's position in the Qt ecosystem and expand the availability of Qt technology across a growing number of platforms. [12]

In September 2014, Digia formed The Qt Company, a wholly owned subsidiary dedicated to the development and governance of the Qt platform. [13] In connection with this, the website qt.io went live, combining the open source qt development and commercial Qt functions that had previously operated at different addresses. Qt products had some 800,000 users globally. [14]

In August 2015, Digia Plc's Board of Directors began to explore the demerger of Digia’s domestic businesses and the Qt businesses into two separate listed companies. [15]

Qt Group 2016–current

In May 2016, the company went public on NASDAQ Helsinki as QTCOM. [16] In March 2016, Digia Plc's Annual General Meeting resolved on the partial demerger of Digia [17] and the demerger was registered in the trade register on May 1. [18] Digia’s Qt business was transferred to a new company, named Qt Group, and Digia's domestic business segment remained under the Digia brand. Digia’s CEO Juha Varelius was appointed as the CEO of Qt Group. [16] Trading in Qt Group shares began on the main list of the Helsinki Stock Exchange in May 2016. [19]  

In 2018, the company had 5,000 customers. Approximately 80% of the Fortune 500 companies are customers of Qt Group. [20]

The company attracted the interest of international investors in spring 2020 when its market capitalization rose above 500 million euros. [21]  The company's market capitalization exceeded 1 billion euros in October. [22] The share price had risen by more than 700% from the IPO price. [23] The company's net sales were close to EUR 80 million euros and its earnings were approximately 17 million euros. [24]  

By spring 2021, the company’s share price had grown nearly fivefold over a period of one year, [21] and its market capitalization was above 2 billion euros. [24] In April, the company announced that it would acquire Froglogic, a Germany-based developer of test automation tools for applications based on the Qt GUI framework. [25] In August, the company made it to the OMXH25 index. [26] The company's net sales amounted to 121 million euros and it had 455 employees. [27]

In the fall of 2022, the company announced that it would acquire Axivion, a Germany-based company whose products detect factors that erode the quality and performance of software. [27]

In March 2023, the company had 706 employees. [28]

Organization

Qt Group's head office is located in Helsinki, Finland. The company has approximately 800 employees worldwide. [29]

The company’s CEO is Juha Varelius, [30] who previously served as the CEO of Digia from 2008 to 2016. [31]

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 the Qt library. The company also employs several KDE developers.

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References

  1. ↑ "20 Years of Qt Code" . Retrieved 10 June 2016.
  2. 1 2 "Office Locations" . Retrieved 15 July 2018.
  3. ↑ "The Qt Company Management" . Retrieved 10 June 2016.
  4. 1 2 "Trolltech goes public". ZDNET. Retrieved 30 May 2024.
  5. ↑ Holland, Colin (2 July 2002). "Qtopia provides multi-platform mobile application environment". Embedded. Retrieved 30 May 2024.
  6. ↑ "Nokia to acquire Trolltech to accelerate software strategy". 28 January 2008. Archived from the original on 4 March 2008. Retrieved 28 January 2008.
  7. ↑ "Nokia ostaa norjalaisen ohjelmistoyrityksen" (in Finnish). 28 January 2008. Archived from the original on 29 January 2008. Retrieved 28 January 2008.
  8. ↑ "Nokia to buy Trolltech, will become a patron of KDE". 28 January 2008.
  9. ↑ "New name, new domain announced for Qt Development Frameworks". 11 August 2009. Archived from the original on 7 January 2012. Retrieved 18 August 2009.
  10. ↑ Halliday, Josh (9 August 2012). "Nokia sells its Qt software business". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 30 May 2024.
  11. ↑ Lawton, Christopher (7 March 2011). "Nokia to Sell Qt Business". The Wall Street Journal .
  12. ↑ "Digia osti Nokialta koko Qt-ohjelmistobisneksen". Yle Uutiset (in Finnish). 9 August 2012. Retrieved 30 May 2024.
  13. ↑ "Qt hot potato spun out from Digia into fourth home". ZDNet. Retrieved 21 February 2017.
  14. ↑ "Digia Announces "The Qt Company", Launches a Unified Website and Unleashes a €20 Indie Mobile Monthly Subscription Plan" . Retrieved 30 May 2024.
  15. ↑ Lehmusvirta, Antti (30 May 2024). "Digia jakautumassa kahdeksi pörssiyhtiöksi". Tärkeimmät talousuutiset | Kauppalehti (in Finnish). Retrieved 30 May 2024.
  16. 1 2 Talouselämä (18 March 2016). "Digian jakautuminen etenee - toimitusjohtajaksi Timo Levoranta". Talouselämä (in Finnish). Retrieved 30 May 2024.
  17. ↑ Talouselämä (18 March 2016). "Digian jakautuminen etenee - toimitusjohtajaksi Timo Levoranta". Talouselämä (in Finnish). Retrieved 30 May 2024.
  18. ↑ Hänninen, Anna-Mari (30 May 2024). "Digia: Qt Group pörssiin toukokuun alussa". Tärkeimmät talousuutiset | Kauppalehti (in Finnish). Retrieved 30 May 2024.
  19. ↑ "Tämä menestystarina on jäänyt monelta huomaamatta – pörssikomeetan kurssi noussut 5 vuodessa 2 657 prosenttia". www.iltalehti.fi (in Finnish). Retrieved 30 May 2024.
  20. ↑ Herrala, Olli (30 May 2024). "Qt Group voi olla mukana kaikessa, missä on näyttö". Tärkeimmät talousuutiset | Kauppalehti (in Finnish). Retrieved 30 May 2024.
  21. 1 2 Leiviskä, Pekka (31 March 2021). "Pieni suomalaisyhtiö näytti epäilijöille: kasvaa hurjasti ja kilpailee Googlen kanssa – "Suomessa ei ole ollut tällaisia sitten Nokian"". Ilta-Sanomat (in Finnish). Retrieved 30 May 2024.
  22. ↑ Rinta-Jouppi, Anton (30 May 2024). "Qt:n markkina-arvo ylitti miljardin euron rajapyykin – Analyytikko: "Kurssinousu on ansaittu"". Tärkeimmät talousuutiset | Kauppalehti (in Finnish). Retrieved 30 May 2024.
  23. ↑ Rinta-Jouppi, Anton (30 May 2024). "Qt:n markkina-arvo ylitti miljardin euron rajapyykin – Analyytikko: "Kurssinousu on ansaittu"". Tärkeimmät talousuutiset | Kauppalehti (in Finnish). Retrieved 30 May 2024.
  24. 1 2 Räisänen, Perttu (30 May 2024). "Supernousija Qt on nelinkertaistanut vuodessa arvonsa kahteen miljardiin euroon, ja näkymät ovat poikkeuksellisen hyvät – "Yhtiön markkina on nuori ja vasta muodostumassa"". Tärkeimmät talousuutiset | Kauppalehti (in Finnish). Retrieved 30 May 2024.
  25. ↑ "Yrityskaupat | Ohjelmistoyhtiö Qt Group ostaa saksalaisen Froglogicin". Helsingin Sanomat (in Finnish). 13 April 2021. Retrieved 30 May 2024.
  26. ↑ Wacker, Henrik (30 May 2024). "Qt Group nousee OMXH25-indeksiin – Neles tippuu pois". Tärkeimmät talousuutiset | Kauppalehti (in Finnish). Retrieved 30 May 2024.
  27. 1 2 Ollila, Kauko (30 May 2024). "Qt laajentaa laadunvarmistukseen – "laitteiden on heti oltava riittävän hyviä"". Tivi (in Finnish). Retrieved 30 May 2024.
  28. ↑ Saarikko, Savanna (30 May 2024). "Qt Groupin henkilöstö on kasvanut vuodessa 26 % – markkinoiden epävarmuus ei haittaa". Tivi (in Finnish). Retrieved 30 May 2024.
  29. ↑ "About The Qt Group - Code Less & Create More". www.qt.io. Retrieved 16 May 2024.
  30. ↑ "Toimitusjohtaja ja johto". www.qt.io (in Finnish). Retrieved 16 May 2024.
  31. ↑ Räisänen, Perttu (16 May 2024). "Suomessa on it-alan menestystarina, joka usein jää unhoon – 2 miljardin markkina-arvo vasta alkusoittoa?". Tivi (in Finnish). Retrieved 16 May 2024.
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