Xamarin

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Xamarin Inc.
Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Software industry
Founded	May 16, 2011;15 years ago (2011-05-16)
Headquarters	San Francisco, California
Key people	Miguel de Icaza, Nat Friedman
Parent	Microsoft (2016–present)
Website	xamarin.com
Footnotes

Xamarin Inc. is a Microsoft-owned San Francisco-based software company founded in May 2011 by the engineers that created Mono, Xamarin.Android (formerly Mono for Android) and Xamarin.iOS (formerly MonoTouch), which are cross-platform implementations of the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) and Common Language Specifications (often called Microsoft .NET).

With a C#-shared codebase, developers can use Xamarin tools to write native Android, iOS, and Windows apps with native user interfaces and share code across multiple platforms, including Windows, macOS, and Linux. According to Xamarin, over 1.4 million developers were using Xamarin's products in 120 countries around the world as of April 2017.

On February 24, 2016, Microsoft announced it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire Xamarin.

Microsoft ended support for Xamarin on May 1, 2024, in favor of .NET MAUI.

Miguel de Icaza in 2006 Nat Friedman in 2006

In 1999 Miguel de Icaza and Nat Friedman launched what eventually became known as Ximian to support and develop software for de Icaza's nascent GNOME project. After Microsoft first announced their .NET Framework in June 2000, de Icaza began investigating whether a Linux version was feasible. The Mono open source project was launched on July 19, 2001. Ximian was bought by Novell on August 4, 2003, which was then acquired by Attachmate in April 2011.

After the acquisition, Attachmate announced hundreds of layoffs for the Novell workforce, including Mono developers, putting the future of Mono in question.

On May 16, 2011, Miguel de Icaza announced on his blog that Mono would be developed and supported by Xamarin, a newly formed company that planned to release a new suite of mobile products. According to de Icaza, at least part of the original Mono team had moved to the new company.

The name Xamarin comes from the name of the Tamarin monkey, replacing the leading T with an X. This is in line with the naming theme used ever since Ximian was started.

After Xamarin was announced, the future of the project was questioned since MonoTouch and Mono for Android would now be in direct competition with the existing commercial offerings owned by Attachmate. It was not known at that time how Xamarin would prove they had not illegally used technologies previously developed when they were employed by Novell for the same work.

In July 2011, however, Novell – now a subsidiary of Attachmate – and Xamarin announced that Novell had granted a perpetual license to Xamarin for Mono, MonoTouch and Mono for Android, and Xamarin formally and legally took official stewardship of the project.

In May 2012, Xamarin released XobotOS, an experimental Android implementation using C# instead of Java.

In December 2012, Xamarin released Xamarin.Mac, a plugin for the existing MonoDevelop Integrated development environment (IDE), which allows developers to build C#-based applications for the Apple's macOS operating system and package them for publishing via the App Store.

In February 2013, Xamarin announced the release of Xamarin 2.0. The release included two main components: Xamarin Studio, a re-branding of its open-source IDE Monodevelop; and integration with Visual Studio, Microsoft's IDE for the .NET Framework, allowing Visual Studio to be used for creating applications for Android, iOS and Windows.

On July 17, 2013, Xamarin announced that they had closed $16 million (~$72.2 million in 2025).

On February 24, 2016, Xamarin and Microsoft announced that Microsoft signed a definitive agreement to acquire Xamarin. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, though the Wall Street Journal reported the price at between $400 million and $500 million.

1. ↑ "Announcing Xamarin". Miguel de Icaza. Archived from the original on May 18, 2011. Retrieved May 16, 2011.
2. 1 2 "What is Xamarin?". Archived from the original on February 27, 2014. Retrieved April 1, 2014.
3. ↑ "Xamarin official support policy | .NET". Microsoft. Retrieved June 5, 2024.
4. ↑ "Microsoft sees nothing but .NET ahead" Archived November 5, 2011, at the Wayback Machine, Steven Bonisteel, ZDNet, June 23, 2000
5. ↑ Koep, Paul (May 2, 2011). "Employees say hundreds laid off at Novell's Provo office". KSL-TV. Archived from the original on May 5, 2011. Retrieved May 7, 2011.
6. ↑ John K. Waters (May 20, 2011). "Interview with Miguel de Icaza". Archived from the original on February 22, 2017.
7. ↑ "XobotOS: Un Android en C# en lugar de Java". Muy Linux (in Spanish).
8. ↑ "Xamarin 2.0 Review". Dr Dobb's Journal. March 12, 2013. Archived from the original on July 2, 2013. Retrieved July 12, 2013. Xamarin 2.0 bundles the company's Android, iOS and Mac development tools in a single affordable package
9. ↑ Lardinois, Frederic (August 21, 2014). "Cross-Platform Development Platform Xamarin Raises $54M Series C". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on January 19, 2015. Retrieved January 15, 2015.
10. ↑ Greene, Jay (February 24, 2016). "Microsoft Agrees to Acquire Xamarin Inc. Deal reflects efforts to increase Microsoft software's presence on devices beyond those that run Windows". Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on February 24, 2016. Retrieved February 24, 2016.
11. ↑ Frank, Blair Hanley (March 31, 2016). "Microsoft shows fruits of Xamarin acquisition with Visual Studio integration". PC World. Archived from the original on April 3, 2016.
12. ↑ "Xamarin for iOS". Archived from the original on March 30, 2014. Retrieved April 1, 2014.
13. ↑ "Announcing Xamarin 3". Xamarin blog. Archived from the original on March 29, 2019. Retrieved May 31, 2018.
14. ↑ GrantMeStrength. "XAML overview - Windows apps". learn.microsoft.com. Retrieved August 20, 2026.
15. ↑ "Mobile development with Xamarin | .NET". Microsoft. Retrieved August 20, 2026.
16. ↑ "Introducing .NET Multi-platform App UI". .NET Blog. May 19, 2020. Retrieved June 4, 2021.
17. ↑ "Xamarin official support policy | .NET". Microsoft. Retrieved April 10, 2023.
18. ↑ "Xamarin Visual Studio". Archived from the original on April 23, 2014. Retrieved April 1, 2014.
19. ↑ Jones, Luke (March 31, 2016). "Build 2016: Microsoft Talks Xamarin, Coming Free to Visual Studio with an iOS Emulator". Winbuzzer News. Archived from the original on April 14, 2016.
20. 1 2 "Microsoft makes Visual Studio for Mac generally available". ZDNet. Archived from the original on May 16, 2017. Retrieved May 17, 2017.
21. ↑ Darryl K. Taft (December 14, 2012). "Can Xamarin's New Mac Tool Lift C# Above Objective-C?". Retrieved April 1, 2014.
22. ↑ How mobile is your .NET? Archived June 25, 2014, at the Wayback Machine, Retrieved June 24, 2014
23. ↑
24. ↑ "BugVM – ibinti". Archived from the original on August 3, 2016.
25. ↑ Official website Commons
26. Category