Microsoft acquires Xamarin, eases cross-platform app development

A not unexpected announced confirmed that Microsoft has acquired Xamarin, reports ArsTechnica . That name won’t ring any bells outside of developer circles, suffice to say that this is big news in the right circles.

Xamarin is a company with a bit of a history. They started off trying to create a version of .NET that was truly cross-platform. The open-source version that they were working on, called Mono, was meant to do exactly that. It was only later on, with Microsoft open-sourcing chunks of .NET, that Xamarin could really focus on building the tools and code that developers would need for cross-platform coding.

Microsoft partnered with Xamarin in November and had been working with them to offer a cross-platform development tool that would take advantage offer .NET framework. Programmers would be able to use C# and easily develop cross-platform apps.

“This acquisition is a new beginning for Xamarin—the company and its products—and is an opportunity to help many, many more developers build great apps.”, says Nat Friedman, co-founder of Xamarin.