Qt/QNX software agreement means shorter development cycles for medical products

We are excited about the announcement that went out this week from Digia revealing that they are extending the Qt Commercial Primary Platform Support to include the QNX operating system.

In the world of medical software development, this agreement will make testing User Interfaces designed for medical equipment a much more efficient and cost effective process which is something we pride ourselves on doing here at CDP!

Software engineers are always under pressure to reduce the time to market and cost of developing new products. Our software team find that the Qt toolkit helps us to reduce project risk because of its power and flexibility to run on both custom platforms and desktops. This means that reviews of the user interface software occur earlier in the project, thus saving our clients time and money. In a recent project using Qt, we were able to perform A/B testing of alternative GUI concepts with our client’s team long before the costly and lengthy process of implementation, saving them around 4 weeks development time and $30,000.

The announcement is significant because the extension of Qt Primary Platform Support to QNX means that these advantages will now be available on one of the best Real-Time Operating Systems (RTOS). RTOS are widespread in industries where real-time data needs to be gathered – for example medical applications that sample data from sensors, or that provide closed-loop control. Compared with traditional Linux and Windows platforms, QNX’s deterministic latencies, low overhead and small footprint mean lower-cost hardware and, importantly, a reduced auditing overhead when demonstrating compliance with the Medical Devices Directive or FDA requirements.

Qt is a highly respected UI and application framework used in the medical, aerospace, automotive and industrial automation industries. At CDP, we are looking forward to using Qt/QNX on our next project because it will help us to deliver the things that our customers care most about: rapid product development, reduced risk, and modest cost.

For more information on CDP’s medical device technology development services, please contact info@cambridge-design.co.uk