Xamarin is now free with Visual Studio; runtime to go open-source
Xamarin is now free with Visual Studio; runtime to go open-source
Last month, Microsoft announced its intention to acquire Xamarin. 10 days ago, the deal has finally closed; so at day 2 at Build 2016, Microsoft is ready to announce what’s next for Xamarin.
In short, Xamarin's solutions will now be integrated into Visual Studio. It’ll be free for devs using Visual Studio Enterprise, Visual Studio Professional, as well as Visual Studio Community Edition. Additionally, VS Enterprise users can get Xamarin’s advanced enterprise features for free, too.
This is huge news because Xamarin’s cross-platform solutions can cost quite a bit before this. By making it free with Visual Studio, Microsoft is removing a huge barrier for Visual Studio/C#-using developers interested in making native apps for iOS and Android.
Also announced is Xamarin Studio for OS X going free as a community edition. Microsoft is also open-sourcing the Xamarin runtime to the .NET Foundation. In Microsoft EVP Scott Guthrie's own words, ".NET is now fully open-source."