Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) might be planning to acquire or make an investment in Xamarin Inc., or perhaps a similar tech company that deals in facilitating mobile applications to work on different devices, says a report from Bloomberg citing people with knowledge of the matter. On March 17, CRN reported that Microsoft was “in the final stages of negotiations” that may lead to the acquisition or investment in Xamarin.
Xamarin and Microsoft have been working together
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Xamarin have been working together for quite a while now. In November, last year, both companies signed a partnership deal to boost their marketing and technical ties. Xamarin has been a popular tool among developers as it allows them to devise Android and iOS applications using C#, which is the most preferred language for a majority of Windows Phone and Windows 8 developers. Around 500,000 developers already use the Xamarin tool for developing fully native apps on Windows, Mac, Android and iOS by using C#.
Apart from the acquisition and investment, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is also working on creating its own programming tools with similar functionality as that of Xamarin. However, the acquisition would help Microsoft attract Android and iOS developers to work on their app for Windows Phone and Windows 8.
Windows Phone developer Daniel Gary (@danielgary) shares his thoughts on the Microsoft and Xamarin via a tweet:
“Microsoft buying Xamarin would be a great move to encourage developers to adopt Windows Phone. Being able to write the majority of your code once and it run on the top three smartphone platforms is a great incentive for developer.”
Microsoft focusing on mobile capabilities
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s new chief executive officer, Satya Nadella plans to focus on developing the company’s mobile capabilities by making its software run on the competitor’s operating systems such as Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s iOS and Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s Android. The software giant has been struggling to retain or boost its handset market share, and therefore is exploring options including ways to run Android and iOS apps on Windows and vice versa.
One of the sources told Bloomberg that Xamarin is presently looking for financing. At an event in San Francisco on March 27, Nadella is expected to launch Microsoft’s Office software for Apple’s iPad.
