Welcoming the Xamarin team to Microsoft

181 Comments

• That's very cool.
  Will Miguel be joining Microsoft? Don Box would be sooo happy :-)
  
  Added plus: This will double the number of people at Microsoft who love .NET and don't think .NET developers are dinosaurs for not wanting to switch to a scripting language invented in the '90s.
  

• Yay!
  

• Great news... If ever they start supporting VB as well...
  

• YES, YES, YES!!! Awesome!
  

• Nice "surprise". :)
  

• Great news!!!
  

• Only 13-15 years after we'd recommended this in the first place. Better late than never Scott.
  

• Dear god, thank you. Now please give us a pricing structure in-line with the reality on the ground. A dev looking to learn mobile, and is thinking about using c# and Visual Studio, cannot afford to pitch out $999 for the license. The $25 indie license leaves you without access to Visual Studio, which is no choice at all for those who rely on expert tools like Re-Sharper.
  
  The pricing structure is one of the biggest reasons independent .NET developers turn away from choosing Xamarin for mobile. And this is no small demographic. These same devs inevitably end up choosing to go native and end up leaving the entire Microsoft ecosystem altogether.
  
  Microsoft, make this right.
  

• What about Miguel?
  Will he really accept working for Microsoft ? Kinda liked his independence.
  

• This is FANTASTIC and welcoming news. Please do NOT forget the web, however. NodeJS is kicking our butts. :P
  http://blog.developers.win/2016/02/how-nodejs-is-dominating-net-in-3-easy-charts/
  

• This is outstanding news if they can get the pricing for Xamarin down to reasonable levels.
  

• I am a little bit confused about it.
  I don't know if it's a good news or not.
  Hope they will not destroy Xamarin like Oracle did with the JVM.
  

• its time to let indie users to build project in VS.
  
  thankyou.
  

• This is awesome news! Please... please... bake Xamarin iOS/Android into the cheapest VS SKU possible... It seems to me like it would make a lot of business sense to even roll it out to Community Edition. I gather this will have interesting implications for Mono and CoreCLR as well. Looking forward to reading about it. Unfortunately, I didn't sign up for //Build within the 60-second time window :-/.
  

• SO many free alternatives, please fix the xamarin pricing FIRST.
  

• Great, now these existing unsolved bugs will be solved much faster :-D
  

• Ya era hora Microsoft, Xamarin es demasiado caro y la licencia de $25 es muy limitada, ya estaba pensando en endeudarme para adquirirlo, pero esta noticia a hecho que cambie de opinión. gracias Scott!
  

• I just wonder how long will it take for MS to make Xamarin actually work. There are dozens of nasty bugs that current Xamarin people don't care to fix and don't even care to hear about, because people finding them don't pay them enough.
  
  Really hope MS would apply the same quality standards as with Visual Studio and make Xamarin actually usable.
  

• Will Xamarin be a Microsoft Partner/MSDN/Visual Studio Dev Essentials/Visual Studio Enterprise benefit, with no additional cost?
  

• Excellent news, been hoping for this for a long time. Now please make this either free for indie devs or at least make it reasonably priced (with VS integration of course). And improve the quality of the product. Looking forward to more announcements on Build.
  

• Love it! Very happy to see the shift.
  

• Fantastic news! Excited for both Microsoft and Xamarin and the future of the platform.
  

• Here are my wishes:
  
  - Make Xamarin free as part of MSDN
  - Fix outstanding bugs (particularly Xamarin Forms and Android debugger)
  - More meaningful error / stack trace information when debugging iOS and Android
  - Visual designer for XAML
  

• MS telling to the mobile world keep whatever body( hardware ) you want but Brain (Software) is ours.
  Kewl, cool , kool.
  

• Congratulations to Xamarin!! I am sure now all Xamarin products will be available part of the MSDN licensing.
  

• It will be great to see VB.NET part of XAMARIN!
  

• it better be free to use right out of the box in Visual studio
  

• I love Microsoft in general. I want it to succeed over Googles and Apples. But got mixed feelings about this. Xamarin as an independent start up could have given more tough competition to other cross platform mobile frameworks rather than taking the burden of Microsoft's brand name. Hope Microsoft doesn't acquire it to just kill the competition.
  

• Great move from Microsoft in this acquisition and hope Nat and Miguel got what they deserved from the deal. This is another example that Microsoft has and continues to change and is becoming one of the most innovative companies in tech. Looking forward to the next few year to see what Microsfot brings to the market.
  

• Great news! I see this as a testimony to Microsoft's commitment that they are serious in bringing .NET (Core) and great tooling to other platforms. It might also bring some more start-up culture to Microsoft, as well as more open-source.
  

• Marcelo's comment about pricing is dead on.
  
  I went back and forth for months with Xamarin as a startup with deep C#/Microsoft experience who really wanted to work with their tools..., and the no-VS restrictions of Indie and crazy high pricing on business meant we gave up and started building with React/Cordova instead. And surprise - we're no longer planning on supporting Microsoft platforms now that we aren't using Microsoft tooling.
  
  This acquisition is long, long overdue - if executed three years ago, it might have singlehandedly prevented the death of Windows Phone as a viable platform. Microsoft needs to get this acquisition closed, fast - and the day it closes, fix the pricing model. VS is the whole attraction of using C# as a platform - include it at all tiers. Then remove any requirement to use the terrible Xamarin Studio IDE, and hand off maintenance to the community.
  
  Honestly, the greatest impact would be if the Xamarin toolset just gets rolled entirely into VS's existing licensing and pricing structure. If I were in charge, I'd offer free use of the tools as long as an app is simultaneously published to Microsoft's appstore alongside competitive platforms. If they take an approach like that, Microsoft could painlessly compensate existing Xamarin customers by converting the remaining time on their contracts to VS licenses.
  

• Awesome news, I hope this means they will open access to VS in the Indie subscription!
  

• Congratulations to all concerned! What exciting times we live in!
  

• Wow! This is stunningly good news. This could really change my development story. I chose ionic/cordova just a few months ago over Xamarin for a cross platform app but like Marcelo & Ben say... considerations around cost and pricing structure won the day.
  
  We're running a multi-developer environment and couldn't justify adopting those licenses for an experimental line-of-business where we have too many unknowns.
  
  Great news and big congratulations to the teams involved.
  

• Ótima notícia, com certeza será mais viável e adaptativo o desenvolvimento utilizando o Xamarin nativo!
  

• Great news!
  

• The comments above are pretty unreadable people. ;)
  

• Like all such announcements, this could turn out to be really great news, or disappointing, and only time will tell. It certainly makes sense. Xamarin is based in Microsoft technology and Microsoft’s mobile strategy, including UWP, has basically come from Xamarin. Hopefully, Microsoft will allow Xamarin to drive their mobile strategy, rather than the other way around. This could be really good news for Xamarin. Right now, Xamarin are severely resource constrained, being acquired by Microsoft could solve that. Xamarin.Forms could benefit greatly, the team is undersized and has to contend with multiple technologies. Access to Microsoft resources and skill pools could allow them to solve many of the layout performance issues (creating a layout engine is a huge undertaking and Jason’s team have done an amazing job, but having access to all that experience could be invaluable), and WindowsPhone and UWP would no longer be second class citizens. Lastly, having Microsoft’s financial backing will allow Xamarin to adjust their pricing policies – hopefully this will mean a useable free version, VS support in the Indie version, and Xamarin business included in MSDN, including the BizSparc and DreamSparc versions. We shall see in the coming months, if our hopes, or fears, are founded.
  

• Incredible! Just make sure to include it as an integral part of MSDN license.
  

• Yes, the quicker microsoft shifts to a purely subsidized model the quicker they can recover some marketshare. Tools need to be free. You need to get PAID to develop for Microsoft, not the other way around. For consumer oriented, tools should be free, dev environments on Azure need to be free (not 300/yr credits, but maybe 300/mo in credits (based on marketplace contribution maybe or with realistic restricted usage rights maybe). Money should be made on the distribution side (aka marketplace). This is why Apple is kicking but. The Visual Studio team (and Xamarin) have done amazing work, but I fear nobody is going to ever notice. The IDE and debugger are great. Right now the "Visual" part of the toolset is sad, but that is the state of union right now.
  
  For enterprise, a subsidized approach could work. Smaller companies could find promotional deals by searching. Larger companies can continue with the kinds of pricing they currently have (by seat or server or Azure resource demands). BizSpark and the spark programs need to be reinvigorated. They should look at companies like Yelp to follow their model for social buzz development.
  
  Short of that, I don't see why everyone doesn't just go to something like cheap VPS with an open stack.
  

• Will Xamarin.Forms be covered by my MSDN subscription or will this require a separate license?
  

• Good, now two things may finally happen after so much heartache:
  1) VB.NET to be included in Xamarin stuff
  2) Xamarin Forms to finally get fixed and be a useful alternative to Cordova.
  

• I've waited for this for 5 years!
  

• Great move, it will significantly ease for iOS and Android developers move to VS + NET
  Wishlist:
  - VB support
  - Indie to VS Community
  - support for SQL Server Compact to Indie
  - finish nonsense 'pay per platform' greediness
  

• I've been pushing for this/begging for this for a couple of years. I had a Xamarin business license for a year, didn't finish my VS Xamarin project in time, and couldnt come up with another $999 to finish my project. Hopefully, with visual studio integration for xamarin included in Bizspark VS Ultimate (without the starter-licenses limitations) I might be able to move on with my Xamarin development.
  

• Brilliant News! Finally Microsoft took the plunge :)
  

• I hope that means that "first class langauge" F# will get some multi-platform love.
  

• As long as the price of Xamarin remains what it is, I'm sticking with Unity.
  

• Positive move but frankly years overdue. So happy to hear this very long overdue announcement. Now, if Microsoft could dump the pricing tiers of Xamarin and just merge the toolset over into Visual Studio then the future of Microsoft in the mobile world actually might start to look positive.
  
  Now... What about buying Unity as well as a move toward the having great dev tools for VR and Augmented Reality etc too, to compete with the likes of Amazon Lumberyard? The acquisition of Unity would be a really good follow-up for Microsoft to make. Xamarin is nice for building mobile apps, but what about mobile games and mobile vr and ar experiences. Please buy Unity as well 😃
  
  And all the tooling has to be free up front. Focus on the 30% kickbacks via app/game sales, in-app purchases instead of trying to extract cash from mostly cash-stricken devs up front 😃
  
  Could do worse than introducing the the same app-kickback pricing model for enterprise devs while you're at it instead of expensive MSDN subscriptions.
  

• This has literally just changed everything for us. We've wanted to use Xamarin for ages but the costs were just too high and so we turned elsewhere. If Microsoft pick up Xamarin's baton for OSX development as well as iOS and Android it will be game changer - to be able to reach all desktop and all major mobile platforms in C# using VS at an affordable price (or maybe free!) it will force us to take a 180 back around to MS tools and technology. Great news!
  

• It will be interesting seeing Wozniak keynoting in a Microsoft event :)
  

• I have a range of feelings about this. I still think sending the Mono team to SuSE and letting SuSE fire them all was one of the biggest mistakes Attachmate made when they bought Novell. A lot of Novell technologies could have benefited from the more stable versions of Mono that the team was developing at that time. Alas, they were let go and formed Xamarin and here we are today.
  
  That said, my own interest in Xamarin going forward is heavily dependent on what Microsoft does with the acquisition, and my needs were not really met by Xamarin's current business model -- but might perhaps be helped by Microsoft's interests. Most of the comments I see above are excited about the mobile programming features that Xamarin brings to Visual Studio. My interest is in the opposite: I like being able to work on cross-platform C# applications on my Mac. Specifically, I like that I can use Xamarin Studio/MonoDevelop to write command line and web tools in C# on my OS X laptop and deploy them on Windows, Linux, or even OS X servers. However, the ASP pieces are an order of magnitude more difficult to use in Xamarin Studio than Visual Studio because of templates etc. I would really love to see a first-class implementation of ASP VNext development on Xamarin Studio for the Mac.
  
  I also agree that the pricing model could use some work. I stopped renewing my $300 annual Xamarin.Mac license because I was using it for projects that intentionally would not generate any revenue (I work in academia but paid for Xamarin out of my own pocket). Microsoft's "free candy for everyone" model of distributing developer tools would be very nice to bring to the Xamarin table. On the other hand, if the ASP tools were a lot better, then than $300 a year would absolutely be worth the price.
  
  In any event, congratulations to the Xamarin team.
  

• Awesome! In chorus with pretty much every other comment above, PLEASE fix the pricing. $1000 per PLATFORM per DEVELOPER (effectively a minimum buy-in of $2000 if you want to develop for Android and iOS, and let's be honest, that's the whole reason for going Xamarin) means that if you have a team of 5 developers you are already sitting at $10,000/year. This is completely insane and is a really hard sell when you're trying to convince a customer or upper management to spring for it when there are many free alternatives out there. It's hard to sell people on the theoretical labor savings of Xamarin against the very real, upfront costs that are incurred in licensing.
  
  If nothing else, being owned by Microsoft should lend some legitimacy to a technology that has always seemed a little too risky to our more conservative customers.
  

• Great news, this is just want microsoft needs.
  
  Shared some thoughts on the future of Xamarin under Microsoft on our blog http://www.rarelyimpossible.com/blog/2016/2/24/microsoft-acquires-xamarin-and-why-this-is-awesome-for-everyone
  

• What will this mean for Mono?
  

• Yes!
  

• I'm tired of this mobile centric crap, apps to do real work are not on a cellphone. Ms is to busy trying to enter a market they have neglected for basically EVER, by neglecting everyone else that got them where they currently are...
  

• THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!!
  
  OMG I CAN'T EXPRESS HOW HAPPY I AM RIGHT NOW!!!
  

• Good move, a year too late.
  
  We left overpriced and buggy Xamarin using Cordoba et. al.
  

• Finally at last... Can't wait for Build 2016 to hear all the details.. hopefully Mono will be replaced by .NET Core CLR in the near future.
  

• Really? How much money for a license? This is very good but I hope it free for Developer Dot Net.
  

• Very cool Scott, Miguel and team! I'm excited to see what unfolds!
  

• Nice, surprised to know that. But I was guessing as Xmarin was getting so closed in the Visual Studio.
  
  Thanks
  

• Admittedly, I didn't read all the comments, so someone might have mentioned this already. I'll be happy to take the credit though... :)
  
  How about this? Effective immediately, Xamarin is free for everyone until we bring it completely into the Microsoft fold. That would definitely cost a pretty penny, but Microsoft would surely reap the rewards in the long run. Think about all the new apps that will be written targeting Windows!
  

• Admittedly, I didn't read all the comments, so someone might have mentioned this already. I'll be happy to take the credit though... :)
  
  How about this? Effective immediately, Xamarin is free for everyone until we bring it completely into the Microsoft fold. That would definitely cost a pretty penny, but Microsoft would surely reap the rewards in the long run. Think about all the new apps that will be written targeting Windows!
  

• Hope now they can bring it to life
  
  https://visualstudio.uservoice.com/forums/121579-visual-studio-2015/suggestions/8912350-bring-windows-10-universal-apps-to-android-and-ios
  

• Here's what needs to happen to make this acquisition worth it:
  - Give Mono a big thank you and then put it out to pasture in favor of Roslyn.
  - Open the door to both C# and VB.NET via Roslyn ASAP if not sooner!
  - Provide a seamless, first-class UI, code, and debugging experience in Visual Studio for all platforms compiling down to native code.
  - Trash Xamarin.Forms - these types of one-size-fits-all UI abstractions are just ridiculous and never work.
  - License as part of Visual Studio Professional or above with no per-platform kickers.
  

• Totally agree with Craig Johnson. It's like you read my mind.
  

• Good news! I hope the pricing will get way lower so I can start developing an app using Xamarin for multiple platforms. I looked at Xamarin years ago, but the upfront costs were too high, so I didn't even try.
  

• Gr8 & welcome news!
  

• Great news! Next step is acquiring duocode and adding it as an integral part of visual studio. That would be just awesome!
  

• I imagine .NET devs around the world are rejoicing (myself included). I hope this means access to Xamarin through existing MSDN and BizSpark subscriptions.
  

• Congratulations, Xamarin is a great product, mainly because it allows us "old-timers" to leverage our hard won .NET/C# experience.
  So, thanks for that!
  
  I have to say, at the risk of derision, that I also actually like using the new javascript frameworks along with HTML5 and CSS3 for some projects. so what does this mean for Cordova Tools support in Visual Studio?
  

• As a corporate user and potential indie user. FIX THE PRICES.
  
  Sort the tiers out.
  
  Keep services tiered, not compiler / linker features / build.
  
  Have a proper full featured community edition.
  
  Even Microsoft does this better than Xamarin with Visual Studio.
  

• Xamarin, a very well deserved acquisition Microsoft, now I feel so proud that my favorite programming language on the planet called C# has a really bright future ahead with every mobile platform adopting it. Thanks a million Microsoft for acquiring Xamarin and keeping cross platform development with C# alive.
  

• Enabling C# developers to develop native like mobile apps is wonderful. The acquisition by Mircrosoft will take that to a new level; more power to the developers and devices.
  

• If microsoft set free mono (Not the ridiculous and borderline borland-like extortion fees xamarin where charging) and while I'm at it , RoboVM as well (The ability to port all that crappy java from android to ios and windows phone would be amazing) , then I will be a very happy dev.
  

• This is the greatest news this year. One of the smartest acquisition Microsoft has made. Xamarin fits the DNA of Microsoft, way better then acquiring Nokia.
  

• Very good news, but this needs to be indeed bug free, super stable, as close to .net api as possible, full syntax support of c#, AND VB.net, be part of the project creation options in the Visual Studio 2015 update 2, and not just visual studio 2016. This will bring all those great winform developers into the mobile apps without having to loose time in learning new languages and frameworks. Great for business developers also!
  

• Very good news, but this needs to be:
  
  indeed bug free,
  super stable,
  as close to .net api as possible,
  full syntax support of c#, AND VB.net,
  be part of the project creation options in the Visual Studio 2015 update 2, and not just visual studio 2016.
  
  This will bring all those great winform developers into the mobile apps without having to loose time in learning new languages and frameworks. Great for business developers also!
  

• This is exciting as it gets. Yeah
  

• Fantastic news, and hopefully us MSDN subscribers will be able to get this software without paying Xamarin's extortionate annual prices.
  
  I also hope Microsoft throws some decent developers into the Xamarin camp. Each time I've tried "Xamarin Studio for iOS" (on a variety of MacBooks), I've found it hopelessly unstable...
  
  Xcode is an incredibly outdated pile of rubbish, but at least that doesn't crash on me every 5 minutes. When it works Xamarin is genius. Problem is, I couldn't justify the cost or risk of building our apps using a development environment as flakey as this.
  
  

• excellent news.. been using xamarin business for a while and could see this coming for the last year.
  With microsoft on board the tools will get better and better as we have seen with visual studio.
  
  Just hope the pricing structure get better.. pretty expensive at the moment for the business licences specially as we develop for both ios and android..
  
  well done microsoft :)
  

• So excited about this news!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  Hoping it will become free for vs community users. It will be the best strategy for Windows 10 and Xamarin both.
  

• Great news. Totally agree with Ben A.'s well written comment
  

• Good news. I hope now that Microsoft has become the beacon for Xamarin, good sense will prevail and the pricing structure is rationalized. I dunno who thought up the ridiculous and unreasonable pricing at Xamarin, but it was the sole thing that prevented me from adopting the platform.
  

• This is great news. Please see to it that Xamarin's pricing structure also reflects the image of Microsoft and its frameworks like ASP.NET.
  

• This is the very best News since years. Unbelievable that sooo many developers as above have the same sight of view. As an Indie i was never able to "play around" with that licence cost. Just lurking over the fence and Switch over to start liking Things like angular (not really, doesn't matter, with or without typescript).
  MSDN Licence - ok that is part of the Job. Some components kike devart, infragisitcs, componentone etc. ok - but on top licence-costs like xamarin, mmhmhh!
  
  So i feel lucky about the announcement and knowing not being alone in my Little own thinktank.
  
  Btw. after more than 30 years as standalone-dev some have seen a lot of come and go - like silverlight just to name one. Not that i would refuse to learn new (shiny) Things, but to have some responsiblities to my customers. That means consistense is sometimes a value and an asset Just one example ... millions lines of expensive angular 1.xx Code - say good bye, and hello world Angular 2.xx . Who has to explain the cost for the new Software completely new with the shiny ng2, but doing nothing better than the "old" one.
  

• That's really exciting. Great News. I love developing software with the Microsoft eco system for 10 years now. Windows 10 will be the best platform on the market.
  

• Amazing News.. I was expecting this move. Congragulations to Xamarin Team.
  

• Too little and way too late. Microsoft on mobile is dead, besides it will be a long time before VS supports Android. Even if they do, Microsoft will get greedy and charge $500 for Android VS. I left the Microsoft ecosystem a couple of years ago precisely because of this lack of committment to Android. I'm using Android, PHP, MySQL and I'll never go back to MS. Should've left years ago!
  

• Great news. Can we now have Xamarin as a free license for MSDN license holders. :)
  

• What will be the official go-to tool for .NET server-side app development on/for Linux? Do you plan to make Xamarin Studio available on Linux?
  

• I am so happy with this news.
  Finally! I was waiting for it for so long due to pricing structure of the product as well as certifications.
  

• Mixed feelings now... Xamarin as an independent company was doing amazing!
  I hope that Microsoft can do the same!
  

• Cool, but I use Xamarin Studio on the mac as Visual Studio setup in crap - Sort that out before I go back to vs for mobile dev
  

• Yeahh Finally :) Awsome move, Hope it gives a new light to windows phone developers like me, now can develop in xamarin by using c#. Was in confusion about the down market of windows phone since few weeks... Now it gives a breath of realax. Congragulations to https://xamarin.com/ Team.
  

• Sounds like good news, but I hope they don't get too mobile centric and forget Mono also brings .NET to OSX, Linux and *BSD.
  

• Hmmm. I have always believed that code is stronger on microsoft. Wouldn't you rather code here?
  I am sure pricing will definitely be reviewed with possible professional community editions.
  
  Good news!
  

• Please don't waste time/effort on VB.NET. It really is a horrible language that needs to die.
  

• Good start - now let's see Monogame officially adopted as XNA5 and made available on the Xbox One
  

• Outstanding! All of the comments about the pricing are dead-on. I myself, have been thinking about changing to a different dev tool - ONLY due to the ridiculous pricing structure that Xamarin had. Think about this MS - look at all of the pricing comments. And it shows to be true - after all of these years - Xamarin only has a 15,000 customer base - not good. Price it right - give us Visual Studio support for all of us Indie users - and then you will have made thousands of devs out here VERY happy!
  
  Great move Microsoft, this is why i remain devoted to you.
  
  Don
  

• So, when will they add support for Visual Basic?
  

• Great news - if this can make Xamarin more affordable, then this will be a huge win.
  

• Hope it will be much better than it was with Skype. Fix critical BUGs (PCL + Xamarin Forms, debugger, stacktrace...) If you will fix it, I`m ready to pay 25$ still. And give me Visual Studio again :)
  

• That's very, very cool! I was thinking why this didn't happen before.
  

• Please, please leverage this to get app devs to write UWP versions. It should be free IF they release the *equal* featured app on the Windows Store simultaneously. So, pay out the nose, or get if free and release on the MS App Store simultaneously (or exclusively). Xamarin is SUCH a great tool for developers of all platforms, it could be leveraged to bring back Microsoft's mobile ambitions from the dead. Such a truly massive opportunity here is MS higher ups can think strategically for once and put aside short term profit motive for just a few minutes.
  

• If you made it this far, you deserve a prize. :) Here is an article that attempts to articulate the remaining marketplace problem between Xamarin, Microsoft, and NodeJS:
  http://blog.developers.win/2016/02/exploring-microsofts-xamarin-acquisition-with-7-simple-graphics/
  

• Great news..... I Hope Microsoft will this as free of cost. Earlier it was too expensive.
  

• You WILL be assimilated!
  

• Its about time they been in working on the price forever. A mobile app works best in the native language and being able to do that with C# or F# is awesome. Now lets see what Microsoft does with it. Will they continue to work tirelessly making it better or will that stop and they just leave it as is...
  

• Very nice!
  

• This is first outstanding correct decision made by Microsoft/.Net team in last 5 years.
  

• Good to hear. I'm also on board with changing the pricing model, but I don't understand why everyone expects Xamarin to be free. It has value and it is ok to pay for something that has value.
  My wish list:
  - Stabilize the Xamarin build tools
  - Build and debug iOS apps without a mac (good luck on this one)
  - Replace mono with .NET
  
  Are people serious that they want VB support? What a joke!
  

• Probably one of the two most interesting decisions that Microsoft took in the last five years...
  Now, like a few others said, take a serious look about the licensing scheme and put this tool in the hands of each developer in this ( or any other ) planet.
  

• Brilliant news. Never really liked Xamarin's greedy prices or the shoddy quality of their rushed framework but always liked the cross-platform idea. As to what the future will hold, I'd guess there is no point in pushing on two different streams of .NET when both have the same intent. Whatever the case, I hope devs won't lose their job over this and Microsoft will be smart enough to use their skill in developing .NET Core at a faster pace now, or at least to allow them to maintain and improve the cross-platform UI stack.
  

• PLEASE fix the pricing ASAP. We have a huge multi-year project that is about to go Cordova/Ionic (and then, likely, will drop Windows Phone support). I sure that there are many others in the same boat (as evidenced by similar comments above).
  

• I sure hope Microsoft doesn't forget us VB.Net users. Been wanting a VB version for some time.
  

• The Mono project was the root of all this. Note that Xamarin works on IOS, Windows, and Android. It would be nice if "Cross Platform" also included Linux. I use Mono/MonoDevelop all the time (Linux), but Xamarin has a superior IDE and development platform. I'd like to see them include Linux (Ubuntu). I guess time will tell.
  

• Three little words: fix the price.
  Please.
  

• This is great news for small companies, especially if they can bring the pricing structure under control. We looked at this tech a couple years ago an attended the first Evolve conference. The pricing was just too steep at that point to realize any value from it. This acquisition, however, could be the tipping point since we write everything in C# already. Fingers-crossed
  

• That's very cool.
  

• if MS makes Xamarin free, people will write apps in C# preferably for Android but tend to code for Windows store too.
  

• This is hopefully good news. Next add a cross platform database engine to your portfolio. VelocityDB already support Xamarin for Windows, iOS, Android, Linux and more. Possibly kill the idea of Universal windows - it is lacking some important API and performance is not better than pure C# (not compiler to C++).
  

• Like many asked, can we get Enterprise license of Xamarin along with our MSDN Subscription with this merger. Also would the VS Code and Xamarin Studio be merged into one for Mac OSX and Linux? That would be useful thing to happen.
  

• One of the reasons I didn't go with Xamarin was because of its price. I hope Microsoft makes this free! Please do! :)
  

• This is biggest new after ASP.net Core 1.0!!!! Make a better pricing please!
  

• Awesome: not a surprise fortunately, but very awesome. I would like to see price addressed, as well as some kind of licensing agreement with Apple over the schizoid iOS 'gotta have a Mac for XCode Build Server' requirement. Xamarin Forms, GREAT idea, nascent implementation, still not ready for prime time, IMO. I'm hoping MS can buff it out soon.
  

• Great news! There was no way I was paying Xamarin three times for the same product on different platforms. Hope I can get all the tools with my MSDN subscription now.
  
  About VB though - Everybody knows that C# is Microsoft's **favorite child** since it gets all the best tool support and features FIRST. So please don't rush out and spend a bunch of resources adding VB.NET support - most people would much rather see progress on the underlying kit instead of adding support for a language that is only used by blub programmers.
  

• Please fix the brain dead pricing and please fix the bugs. Xamarin IDE is frustrating at best when trying to step thru code on android.
  

• Excellent news. Expecting to see pricing with VS support getting realistic initially and as much integration into the universal platform as possible in the long term. Well done Xamarin, well done Microsoft. This is the best way to get new/get back developers interested in using the .MS stack.
  

• One language for wp10, android, ios and win 10. Great news! Xamarin free!!!
  

• Hmmm. This is interesting. It definitely could be a positive thing. I've been using xamarin for the last 4 months on a new project, and my feeling is the platform could use a bit of MS polish, although I've found it quite good. On the other hand I am worried I will be screwed over like the Silverlight fiasco.
  

• Excellent news.. exciting
  

• This is the high point of 2016 for MS developers. Something to take on the MS news drumbeat of JS/html/css wrapped in a mobile app is state of the art for the last 2 years.
  
  Producing success stories of multinational companies developing mobile applications would do more to make a viable business case for corporate mobile that thousands of app store game XYZ, developed with toolset DEF, is soooo coooolll stories.
  
  IT governance boards have a hard time, in my experience, funding projects when the invariable questions of 'Will the toolset/platform have in active forward commercial support by a company larger than 10 employees in 3 years?' and 'Will we be able to find development staff in 3 years for the toolset/plaftorm?' go unanswered. A github repo, a team blog and a few random blog posts did not meet the active forward commercial support criteria of the IT board.
  

• Bye bye windows phone...
  

• This is good. Over a couple of updates, I foresee the integration becoming deeper with Visual Studio and working with Xamarin more enjoyable.
  
  I'm also hoping support for Visual Basic is added. We have a lot of code in Visual Basic over the years that we don't intend to move over and a lot of VB.NET developers who are amongst out best, and I've spoken to devs from other companies across East and Southern Africa (6 countries, but I'm sure there's more). Not everyone embraced the C# or JavaScript move that seems to have become popular. There still is a lot of investment in code in VB and .NET.
  
  Over time they have become quiet because it seems Microsoft and others don't want to hear about VB and more recently, Microsoft are speaking less and less about .NET in favor of JavaScript and CSS. This might appear to the powers that be that people are moving over to C# or JS, but in my experience, those people have the general feeling that whatever they move to, Microsoft might change their mind again in the future, so they end up using non-Microsoft technology like Java and for mobile development take up Android because it seems those two aren't going away
  
  All in all, I think the Xamarin move is a great one and will make more people embrace it but it is my sincere hope that things that work, and those that could work from the Microsoft side are not jettisoned as a result.
  

• Xamarin just got my attention again. I looked at it about a year ago and the price was stupid for me, and I'd have to believe most developers. So I will start looking at this again in anticipation that it will be bundled with Visual Studio and not cost any extra. Otherwise, it remains stupid.
  

• Will be interesting to see the direction Microsoft takes Xamarin as it relates to the Indie subscribers and BizSpark.
  
  Idea, for those who want it free - get the 1% to pay for your subscription. :)
  
  (Ducking due to introducing politics into the mix)
  

• Microsoft, are you going to embrace, extend and extinguish Mono? Are you going to pollute Linux with your telemetry in any fashion?
  

• A couple of months ago I wrote buying XAMARIN would have been better for Microsoft than buying Nokia.
  

• Good move from Microsoft keep doing .
  

• When can we see xamarin free and integrated with visual studio code ? I guess that would complete the bouquet of web and mobile and visual studio - vs code, asp.net core 1 and xamarin.
  

• When can we see xamarin free and integrated with visual studio code ? I guess that would complete the bouquet of web and mobile and visual studio - vs code, asp.net core 1 and xamarin.
  

• The biggest problem with Xamarin is pricing! That forced us to go with the Cordova route with pure HTML+Javascript on client side (think about such a real world nightmare that just for building a fairly simple SPA, you will need jumping around so many tools like node.js, Bower, Gulp, Karma, etc.) and then some management member even suggested replacing the whole .NET stack with node.js. Please get the Xamarin pricing right for the developers ASAP! Otherwise abandoning Microsoft technology can be more and more trendy, which will come back to hurt the adoption of the Microsoft cloud services very hard.
  

• amaziiiing !
  But I think there are some better business models than what Microsoft insists on !
  (The biggest problem with Xamarin is pricing !! )
  

• yes - pricing, pricing, pricing....after all devs write apps to make money, not to loose money :-)
  

• WOW!
  That's great news, but it will become real great news when MS makes Xamarin totally free under MIT licence and pays back all its Silverlight developers for the pain it caused them.
  

• CoreCLR, LLILC, Xamarin ... Mono's death granted.
  

• And besides that, Xamarin will be complete when it provides a web solution too.
  MS should aim to make an app written solely in C# and XAML app compile to Android, iOS, WUP, desktop and web app.
  C# is the best server and client app, XAML is the best UI app, both are MSFT mature flagship languages. I have no idea why MS is investing its life in JS, HTML and other hard-coded and error-prone languages when it should really focus on providing a true replacement for Silverlight and RIA services.
  Read this blog (I'm not the author, but I'm a total fan): blog.developers.win
  

• Great news indeed.
  

• This is good news. Xamarin is a great platform and tool but i kept off it due its ridiculous pricing model. I hope this acquisition will help bring it to a larger audience.
  

• Fantastic development! Xamarin is going to be a great addition to the available resources for people consulting, developing, or supporting Azure. Especially as AzureStack and Azure IoT Hub continue to grow.
  

• Is there possibility to open source more of Xamarin technology and make the licenses MIT like much of the other MS Open Source projects?
  

• Memory issues in the iOS environment NEED to be addressed.
  A tough problem given impedance mismatch between ARC & .Net's garbage collection.
  I've spent WAY too long tracking down leaks - at a minimum, resolve documentation & samples misleads.
  
  Oh, & by the way, how about buying Stuart's MvvmCross (most excellent) & bringing some MS polish/respectability to it to?
  

• I guessed it right a month before when I was browsing the Xamarin web site for finding tools for my mobile app. It is a great news for all MS developers. But one thing that concerns me is the cost of license for Xamarin. I hope MS does something about it.
  Good luck for the future.
  -Ananth
  

• Wow, it's the most interesting and amazing news in 2016. I hope Microsoft will fix the licence issue and give us Xamarin in Visual Studio Community.
  
  In that case the number of Windows Phone Application can grow much more than the past.
  
  I believe in you Microsoft.
  

• This is good news for Xamarin developers, and I hope pricing will be a lot better. I think there's a need to fix the pricing, as free solutions like React Native are getting more attention and offer a similar solution.
  

• why in the universe would anyone build atop of Javascript ? are we really that mind numb that we want all the under educated script kiddies to be able to play with software ?
  
  besides all of the limitations, troubleshooting/debugging javascript is like being spooned to death!
  

• Price is a important factor to using Xamarin. Please focus on this part specially.
  

• Xamarin needs to be folded into VS Community. Until that happens, I will stay with Unity.
  
  The days of charging developers for your tools is over (which I think MS gets). The revenue now comes from the back end. This is the new marketplace.
  

• As a former MS employee and current Xamarin customer, please don't "Visual Studio"-ize Xamarin Studio. I hate to say it, but after 20+ years in Windows coding on a mac is like finally driving a car with power steering and leather seats. The Xamarin Studio team put some polish into the IDE that VS does not have, e.g. desiging your own color schemeS. I fear these niceties will drown in conforming to whatever the new design thrust Microsoft is going through, like the Metro look.
  
  Yes, there are great features in both. It just gives me pause.
  

• The independent, individual developer invests enough on cloud services... Please help make the tools free so we can continue to support Azure!
  

• Any news on Robovm?
  
  Robovm is a wonderful product that brings Java to iOS. Many games made with popular framework Libgdx depend on it for iOS support.
  
  Robovm was acquired by Xamarin shortly before Xamarin was acquired by Microsoft.
  
  If Microsoft continues Robovm, and also use its position to improve Windows Phone support for Libgdx, I think they'd be able to do two great things:
  
  * Get more games in the Windows Phone App store
  * Acquire more cloud customers for Azure (many games require a cloud backend, being present in a positive way this area means more customers).
  

• Another take. RoboVM was acquired by Xamarin. It allows us Java developers some of the joy of cross-platform native development that the C# folks have had for some time. The RoboVM boys and girls did and are doing some first-class work and the tools are phenomenal (IntelliJ along with Android Studio and Xcode).
  
  Hopefully investment will continue in RoboVM especially in terms of hardware functionality wrappers.
  

• Another take. RoboVM was acquired by Xamarin. It allows us Java developers some of the joy of cross-platform native development that the C# folks have had for some time. The RoboVM boys and girls did and are doing some first-class work and the tools are phenomenal (IntelliJ along with Android Studio and Xcode).
  
  The responsiveness of the RoboVM team to input from their users and to releases from Apple has been peerless.
  
  Hopefully investment will continue in RoboVM as well.
  

• Do you plan to make Xamarin Studio available on Linux?
  

• This acquisition makes a lot of sense. Its been along time coming. Kudos
  

• This is good news.
  
  Now if Microsoft really wants to corner the mobile development tools market they'll rework the pricing.
  
  Xamarin charged WAY too much. It practically forced independent developers and smaller companies to opt for Titanium and others.
  
  I don't mean Microsoft has to give the store away, just make it reasonable (with ReSharper integration!).
  

• Nothing has changed, no new upgrades, no news from Microsoft, high prices are the same. I think that Microsoft acquired Xamarin to close it in some time.
  

• Today is big day... Build 2016 Day-2 where all are excited to hear something regarding Xamarin. I hope the tools become free and indie developers like me can take advantage and take the Microsoft eco system to next level which is the primary goal of Microsoft.
  

• So now that Miguel sold his soul, what will become of Monodevelop? I don't care about mobile, but .Net isn't really cross-platform if the _developers_ are forced to use Windows. Monodevelop works well for me on Linux, are they going to bring that steaming pile of bugtastic bloatware that is Visual Studio over to Linux or is it Embrace Extend Extinguish all over again?
  

• Some feedback on .NET / ASP.NET / C#:
  
  http://blog.alivate.com.au/leave-c-sharp/
  
  Just some ponderings, but quite advanced. I thought some feedback would be good. I could be wrong.
  

• No need to worry about the pricing. It's free now unless this is an April 1's joke
  
  http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/open-source-insider/2016/04/monkeys-go-wild-microsoft-makes-xamarin-free.html
  

• Big changes since Microsoft aquired Xamarin. Hopefully with the benefit for Xamarin Developers.
  

• I would like to know more on what would this mean to RoboVM? Can this be made open source under a permissive license?
  

• This news is not so shocking to me. Xamarin is a pretty decent platform, a lil pricey but with the acquisition they should be able to get the attention they need.
  

• So will Xamarin ever support Visual Basic ?
  

• So will Xamarin ever support Visual Basic ?
  

• L
  

• Xamarin is a great way to develop brand new Web applications.
  FoxInCloud is just as great to adapt existing Business Apps to the cloud using state-of-the art Web Techs such as HTML5 and AJAX, with just 1% code rework.