Should Qt target the HyperSpace?

Question

As you may already know, Phoenix is developing an alternative computing environment based on top of its BIOS, called HyperSpace. According to its designers it should run "a collection of commonly-used browser-enabled applications designed to make the Internet browsing experience simple, fast and secure".

Although Phoenix has declared in its FAQ that you will not be able to install/run your own applications on top of the HyperSpace, in a recent interview on MIT's Technology Review said that they are planning to open in June an iTunes-styled store to sell applications.

I'm guessing they are probably up to Apple's business model of providing secure applications via a centralized service thus sooner or later a developer toolkit shall arrive.

Since Qt has an impressive record of cross-platform capabilities, do you believe that Nokia should make an alliance with Phoenix to port the Qt toolkit to the coming HyperSpace application developers? If it's not Qt what should the ideal developing platform for HyperSpace be?

Answer 1

It looks to me that this is basically a dual boot machine.

• one boot goes to a version of windows that QT supports (or will presumably support).

• one goes to a web browser and will only run web applications or widgets.

If your asking whether QT should allow you to target the second environment, then it all depends on whether that is even remotely compatible with the QT technological choice of including a Webkit engine.

There could also be a licensing issue.

I am not convinced the Hyperspace product is aimed at desktop developers the way QT is. I think it's aimed at web applications developers.

Edit: What you seem to wonder is whether Nokia sees a commercial interest in supporting Hyperspace and whether they have the resources to do it. Unfortunately, I suspect only the head of QT development at Nokia can truly answer that.

Answer 2

"I am not convinced the Hyperspace product is aimed at desktop developers the way QT is"
Qt is aimed at embedded mobile phone apps, they are now owned by Nokia, if Qt happens to run on desktops that is just a nice bonus for Nokia.

Given it's, small size, no external dependencies and 'easy to port'-ness I would have thought Qt was a good start for a bios-os desktop.