Microsoft has added another company to their growing list of recent aquisitions. In a deal said to be worth $400 million to $500 million USD, the acquisition gives Microsoft control of one of the most widely recognized mobile software development platforms in the world.
Xamarin offers a software development engine and additional tools that make it easy for programmers to publish applications to iOS, Android and yes, even Windows. Microsoft is undoubtedly hoping more developers will port their apps over to Windows mobile devices and maybe even the Xbox One console. Xamarin currently has over 15,000 clients including over a hundred Fortune 500 companies.
Microsoft has already provided some integration with Xamarin in their existing products such as Microsoft Visual Studio and the Azure cloud network. The acquisition will enable Microsoft to provide even deeper integration. With resources such as Visual Studio, Azure, Havok Engine and now Xamarin, beginning developers have a one-stop location for most of the resources they would need to build a game or utility application. Microsoft will provide additional details about how they will put this platform to use during the upcoming Build conference and the Xamarin Evolve presentation in April.
