Troll Tech today announced that it is developing a GUI application framework directly targeted at embedded Linux systems. Based on Troll Tech's popular and proven Qt technology, the new product will be named Qt/Embedded, and will give developers of embedded applications the same power, flexibility and cross-platform portability as the popular desktop versions, Qt/Windows and Qt/X11. A preview of Qt/Embedded will be shown at Software Development 2000 West in San Jose, March 22-24.

Qt/Embedded does not require the X Window System, which traditionally has provided the low-level GUI functionality on Linux systems. This means that a Qt/Embedded based system will have substantially lower memory requirements. Qt/Embedded will also provide functionality not found in the X Window System, such as anti-aliased text rendering and alpha-blending of images. For increased performance, Qt/Embedded can utilize hardware graphics acceleration and it is well suited for multimedia and web applications.

“We are highly commited to provide this GUI solution for embedded Linux. Qt/Embedded offers a sophisticated GUI which makes it the ideal software platform for internet appliances and similar embedded Linux devices,” said Haavard Nord, CEO of Troll Tech. “Linux has a very exciting future in embedded systems, and we are currently initiating cooperation with the central players in the embedded Linux area.”

“This is very good news for embedded Linux,” said Tim Bird, CTO of Lineo. “For OEM's, the Qt/Embedded software development kit can significantly reduce time-to-market, and the memory savings can reduce the per-device hardware production costs.”

Qt/Embedded will provide an application programmer's interface that is identical to the existing Qt/X11 and Qt/Windows products. For application developers, this means that the Qt/Embedded solution will provide single-source-code portability between the desktop (Unix or Windows)and the devices. Applications may be developed on ordinary desktop computers, and later deployed on the embedded systems. Qt/Embedded will also give instant portability of existing Qt-based software to embedded Linux systems.

About Troll Tech: Troll Tech enables its customers to develop efficient, maintainable,commercial-grade software by providing software components. Troll Tech's flagship product Qt is a cross-platform C++ application framework which enables rapid building of state-of-the-art GUI applications. Qt is fully object-oriented, easily extensible, and supports true component programming. It is supported on a wide range of platforms, including Windows 95/98/NT/2000, Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, IRIX, and AIX. Since its commercial introduction in 1996, Qt has
formed the basis of many hundreds of successful commercial applications worldwide. Qt is also the basis of the KDE Linux desktop environment. Troll Tech AS is headquartered in Oslo, Norway.

 
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