Xamarin, the Company
Xamarin is a software company established in San Francisco, CA. However, since its formation in the year 2011, this software company has created a niche for itself with the development of various cross-platform implementations for Andriod iOS-based devices known as “Mono” and “MonoTouch”.
Release of Xamarin 2.0
Last year February, Xamarin announced the release of Xamarin 2.0. It consists of two components - Xamarin Studio and Visual Studio integration. Xamarin Studio was an amalgamation of Xamarin's distinct iOS, Android and Apple OS X development tools into a single application while integration with Visual Studio, an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) of Microsoft Development means henceforth Visual Studio can be used to generate apps for iOS, Android and Windows.
Reasons for Microsoft’s Acquisition of Xamarin
Thus, we can see that the association of Microsoft and Xamarin is more than a year old. The software giant is in the final stages of negotiation that may lead to either buying Xamarin or becoming its major investor. Through the acquisition of Xamarin, Microsoft aims to improve its business and products sale worldwide. The software giant has indeed taken a smart decision to acquire Xamarin. This is because the Microsoft developers will get the golden opportunity to use Visual Studio and Visual Studio Team Foundation Server when coding iOS and Android apps that are virtual and cloud-based without any problem whatsoever.
Interested individuals and businesses wanting to learn more about the status of the deal will have to wait for just a month from now since in April 2-4, 2014 the software giant is likely to announce Xamarin acquisition in its San Francisco Build Developer Conference. According to industry experts, Microsoft Corporation is trying to give a strong message to the global audience under the leadership of its new CEO Satya Nadella that this company is still very much alive and has the potentiality to once again bounce back with many successful ventures and investments.
Benefits of this Tie Up
The Microsoft Development .Net community will benefit the most from the acquisition of Xamarin since from now on Microsoft.Net developers will get the chance to create indigenous apps for iOS and Android taking the help of Microsoft’s Visual Studio and Common Language Specifications. This move will also prove advantageous as far as the company’s mobile development strategy is concerned. It is because creating native applications will benefit the millions of Microsoft developers across the world who can now make Windows Phones and Windows 8 more accessible and useful.
What’s more! Tie up with Xamarin will also make Microsoft a highly profitable company since Visual Studio, Team Foundation Server and such other popular tools will pave the way for fetching additional licensing revenue.
Views of Microsoft Carrier Partners
The carrier partners of Microsoft are no doubt excited with the latest purchasing news since a bond with Xamarin will reduce the volume of support calls they have to deal with every time a client changes his/her phones and the applications stop working or become inaccessible.
If different news sources are to believe, in November 2013, Microsoft and Xamarin have already become official partners to make it easier for the developers to build intrinsic mobile apps for iOS and Android using Visual Studio.