Finnish software firm Digia has told Reuters that it will pay Nokia approximately €4 million ($4.9 million) for the Qt application framework, a crucial tool in the development of Symbian and MeeGo apps, in a deal announced yesterday. While the price is significantly lower than the $150 million that Nokia paid for Qt back in 2008, it is not a like-for-like deal — the commercial licensing and services aspects of Qt were sold to Digia last year for an undisclosed sum.

Roughly 125 Nokia employees will transfer to Digia as part of the agreement, with the majority located in either Oslo or Berlin. According to an official announcement released yesterday, Digia plans to "quickly enable Qt on Android, iOS and Windows 8," with the framework likely to continue its life as a system for cross-platform app development. The open source framework has been a central component of both Symbian and and MeeGo, favored by Nokia until the company's dramatic turn towards Windows Phone in February 2011.