The Qt Company, which offers a cross-platform development framework for enterprises to build their applications once and run them anywhere on any device, is launching a new project that aims to make software development faster and more lightweight.

The provider of open-source development tools has just launched its new Qt Lite Project. It’s a major expansion of the existing framework that should make development easier and faster than before, the company says.

The Qt Lite Project is built into Qt’s existing framework, but offers a wide range of enhancements that allow developers to streamline the creation and delivery of software and devices for all relevant platforms, regardless of its size.

Explaining the need for this update, the company cites a couple of reports from Gartner Inc. and RnR Market Research, which say there are currently around 6.4 billion connected “things” in use in the world, and forecasts the connected device market to grow from $157.05 billion this year to $661.74 billion by 2021, representing a compound annual growth rate of 33.3 percent.

That’s a huge market opportunity, Qt says, and so the company has created the Qt Lite Project in order to ensure that these connected devices can communicate over supported protocols. The software can be extended to next-generation devices. Using Qt Lite, developers can capitalize on the connected device market’s growth by building apps and devices that will survive and thrive as the growing Internet of Things (IoT) industry takes hold.

According to Chief Technology Officer Lars Knoll, the Qt Lite Project came about after the company realized it would need a more targeted framework that’s able to facilitate the entire development cycle as well as the lifetime for products for embedded devices.

“By introducing Qt Lite, we’re providing our customers and partners with a lightweight and streamlined version of the Qt framework they’ve come to know and trust,” Knoll said in a statement. “As a result, they’re able to reap the benefits of a shorter and less intensive development cycle, including reduced R&D costs, faster time-to-market for new products, and the ability to dedicate valuable resources towards other strategic business initiatives.”

Qt says Qt Lite has been designed to enable “streamlined development” of software and devices for a broad range of industries, including the automotive, avionics, healthcare, home appliance and entertainment sectors.

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