Trolltech, a global leader in cross-platform application frameworks, has released a new version of its flagship product, Qt. Key features added to the popular framework in Qt 4.4 include functionality that, for the first time, enables developers to create applications that blend content from the live Web into native desktop and mobile applications. Qt 4.4 also makes it easier to deliver a consistent user experience across Windows, Macintosh and Linux systems, as well as on mobile devices.

Qt has become the de facto standard for building advanced cross-platform applications. It provides a common framework to deliver applications and services across both desktops and devices. Qt 4.4 now extends the reach of those applications so they can also be deployed on devices running Windows Embedded CE, the small footprint operating systems that run on a wide variety of devices — from smartphones and barcode readers to consumer products like set-top boxes and digital picture frames.

“The Last.fm software gives music fans an easy way to track their listening habits and receive music recommendations. Qt was a natural choice for us because we had to support any potential listening environment,” said Toby Padilla, vice president of desktop and client software for Last.fm. “Last.fm integrates with all major media players on Windows, Mac and Linux with a single, open source code base. Without Qt, that simply would not have been possible. Furthermore, Qt's new support for Windows CE and Windows Mobile gives us the option of easily supporting those platforms.”

“With Qt 4.4 we advanced three of our key design goals; first, giving developers the ability to develop cutting edge user interfaces, second, enabling them to more efficiently develop faster, high performance applications, and finally extending our vision of Qt Everywhere by adding support for Windows CE,” said Benoit Schillings, Trolltech CTO.

“The market is continually creating a higher bar for deploying increasingly graphically rich applications on a multitude of different devices,” said Al Hilwa, Program Director at IDC. “Giving developers a single platform for development across desktop operating systems and embedded platforms can help speed the timely process of taking code from desktop to desktop, desktop to embedded, or embedded to embedded.”

In addition to the integration of WebKit and Windows Embedded CE support, Qt 4.4 includes more than 100 new classes and incorporates a number of performance improvements. The new features in Qt 4.4 include:

• Qt WebKit Integration– Qt now incorporates WebKit, the open source browser engine inside Apple’s Safari browser, the Apple iPhone and millions of Nokia smartphones. The integration enables developers to blend web and native content and functionality, create innovative user interfaces, and deliver a consistent, web-enriched user experience.
• Qt for Windows CE– In addition to its existing embedded Linux support, Qt now also supports Windows CE, delivering a single gAPI for both operating systems. This allows consumer electronics manufacturers to shorten time to market and lower costs by unifying skills, people and code. Code can be moved from desktop to desktop, desktop to embedded devices and from one embedded device to another.
• Multimedia Framework– Qt now includes support for Phonon, a multimedia framework developed in conjunction with the KDE community. Phonon makes it easy to include multimedia playback in C++ applications so developers can easily integrate rich multimedia content into applications.
• Widgets in Graphics View –Qt now also adds the flexibility of embedding widgets into a scene, bringing layouts, styling, pop-ups and even window decorations into the canvas realm, and allowing the rotation, scaling, and application of perspective transformations to widgets.
• Concurrency Framework – Qt now includes an API that makes it easy to develop multithreaded applications and take advantage of multi-CPU systems.
• Enhanced XML Support – Qt now incorporates support for the XQuery standard. This enables developers to query, extract and transform data from XML encoded content in Qt-based applications.

Pricing and Availability

Qt 4.4 is available under Trolltech’s standard dual-licensing approach. For developers creating open source applications, Qt 4.4 is available under the GPL (both version 2 and 3). Developers creating commercial applications can license Qt. To download and try Qt 4.4 please visit: http://trolltech.com/downloads. For pricing information, please contact sales@trolltech.com.

About Trolltech

Trolltech provides cross-platform software development frameworks and application platforms. Trolltech’s Qt is used in popular software such as Skype®, Google Earth, Adobe® Photoshop® Elements, Lucasfilm® and by more than 5000 customers worldwide. Trolltech’s Qtopia® has enabled a new generation of exciting consumer devices such as mobile handsets, video-phones, set-top boxes and media players. Trolltech’s software has shipped in more than 10 million devices.

Trolltech’s products enable companies to easily build and deploy software across a wide range of operating systems and electronic devices. The company serves desktop and embedded application providers, as well as consumer electronics and mobile vendors, who face challenges in delivering user-friendly and differentiated software. Trolltech enables customers to accelerate innovation, shorten time to market and increase revenues. Trolltech’s software improves the user experience by increasing the appeal and quality of customer's applications on desktop and devices. The future proof Qt software allows developers to code less, create more and deploy anywhere.

Trolltech supports open source and commercial customers. The company has offices in California, U.S.A.; Brisbane, Australia; Beijing, China; Berlin and Munich, Germany; Oslo, Norway. It is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol TROLL. For more information about Trolltech, please visit www.trolltech.com.

Trolltech, Qt and Qtopia are registered trademarks of Trolltech ASA. All other trademarks are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.