Microsoft has announced on Wednesday signing an agreement to acquire Xamarin following years of rumors. Xamarin is a California based cross platform mobile software development specialist. The acquisition aims to help bolster Microsoft's Universal Windows Platform (UWP) technology ideals.
The Redmond based tech giant has focused on cross platform mobile approach after Satya Nadella succeeded Steve Ballmer as CEO. Microsoft Office can be transformed into strong versions capable of running on Android, iOS and Windows 10 mobile through this approach. Even the cloud services may be represented as a platform for any mobile client rather than primarily for Windows, reports The Register.
Microsoft expects to make its world class developer tools and services even better with deeper integration and enable seamless mobile app dev experiences. The combination of Xarmin, Visual Studio, Visual Studio Team Services and Azure is expected to deliver a complete mobile app dev solution. The dev solution will provide everything a developer requires to develop, test, deliver and instrument mobile apps for every device, reports VentureBeat quoting excited Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of Microsoft's Cloud and Enterprise Group from a blog post.
Xamarin has started as an offshoot of the Mono cross-platform software programming tools project. From the very beginning, it appears as an open source implementation of Microsoft's .NET programming framework designed to extend the scope of Linux tools. Xamarin may be used by the developers to write native iOS, Android and Windows apps with native user interfaces and share code across multiple platforms, according to a report published in Forbes. Nat Friedman, Xamarin has informed through blog post that the cross platform software has more than 15,000 customers. Bosch, Dow Jones, Flipboard, GitHub, JetBlue, Kellogg's, and Microsoft include their names as Xamarin client. Xamarin has raised $54 million funding round in 2014 from Charles River Ventures, Floodgate, Ignition Partners, Insight Venture Partners and Lead Edge Capital. Though none has shared anything more about the deal from both parties, the acquisition has been rumored to be made for $400 million to $500 million. The acquisition will also be beneficial for C#, the language of .NET. With Xamarin contribution, .NET will now become cross platform for mobile and desktop applications as well.
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