I was pretty sure this would happen once Xamarin spun out of what was left of Novell. Open source .NET proved that C# is a great language outside of Windows and it wouldn't take much money for Microsoft to acquire it. Throwing Microsoft's considerable resources at Xamarin would allow Microsoft to gain a huge foothold in cross platform development, and thus would be much more likely to have developers port their apps to Windows.
Microsoft used to embrace, extend, and extinguish their competition before they got too big and too afraid of their own shadow(and shareholders) with Windows and Office. Honestly, it makes total sense for Microsoft to acknowledge they are running a distant #3 and get as many developers behind them as they can. Make Microsoft the place where real hackers go to write code.
Buying Xamarin is embracing. As is maybe a Nokia Android phone. Microsoft needs to make their own "better" version of Android with their own services and get people hooked on that. Then make the "best" version of Android called Windows A. It's Windows, on Android. Windows A's best features would be closed source and patented. It would potentially crush Android in the mainstream.
I don't think that Microsoft has the guts to try and pull that off, but if they did, it would be a feat.
Aren't a lot of people who used to work at Microsoft during the 90s/early 2000s working at Google now? I'd be surprised if the people who implemented Embrace/Extend/Extinguish in the first place aren't one step ahead.
The best parts of Android are already closed sourced and patented: gapps, all the stuff Samsung, Motorola, HTC etc. add on, the baseband etc.
Even if Google is a step ahead, it wouldn't be too bad for devs to have a top tier common Mobile app Dev environment. I for one love .Net and if MS can pull off Extend and Embrace successfully (less extinguish) we (or at least .Net fans) will be better off.
The market will be better off with MS, Google, and Apple as strong rivals.
Yes, imagine to see two companies with such enormous software development capacity such as google and microsoft compete head to head using the same baseline, open android, where google are at least five years ahead, and to see if microsoft could catch up. I'd love to see that fight.
Samsung is already in this fight, but surely microsoft would at least beat them.
Microsoft used to embrace, extend, and extinguish their competition before they got too big and too afraid of their own shadow(and shareholders) with Windows and Office. Honestly, it makes total sense for Microsoft to acknowledge they are running a distant #3 and get as many developers behind them as they can. Make Microsoft the place where real hackers go to write code.
Buying Xamarin is embracing. As is maybe a Nokia Android phone. Microsoft needs to make their own "better" version of Android with their own services and get people hooked on that. Then make the "best" version of Android called Windows A. It's Windows, on Android. Windows A's best features would be closed source and patented. It would potentially crush Android in the mainstream.
I don't think that Microsoft has the guts to try and pull that off, but if they did, it would be a feat.