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Comment by aespinoza | Hacker News Reader

We are using it. We love C# so much we built a platform around it. But as a startup owner, .Net gets expensive because of the Windows dependency. And even thought mono is out there to run C# on Linux, the company behind it (Xamarin) only cares about Macs and Mobile right now.

The ecosystem for Mono is also not there, meaning that most solutions focus on favoring other frameworks like Python's Django, Ruby on Rails, etc. People prefer to invest more time in open source frameworks and platforms, specially in the startup world.

In other words, it is easier to create startups in frameworks that have a rich community and focus on open source. It is not easy (not impossible though) to create a startup based on a technology that is limited to one platform, specially when that platform is expensive to operate.

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So here's an idea: it's in Microsoft's interest to buy, or clone, Xamarin, and make it work on WP8/Metro as well.

That's because, frankly, platform lock-in is killing Microsoft's chances now that they're the distant third-place touch app ecosystem, for the same reason it helped them as the strong first-place desktop OS. App makers will target the top platform or two, and only those, as long as it's much extra work to go broader. Solid, free-as-in-beer tools to target WP, iOS, and Android all at once make it less work to support WP so more devs will do it.

Having built or acquired the tech to run .NET off Windows, maybe they should release some more of their ecosystem to make it viable for more startups to use .NET. Someone small using some free compilers/libraries and MySQL may eventually be a prospect to buy VS and SQL Server. (And whether they ever sell these startups anything or not, folks releasing .NET libraries make the ecosystem more attractive.)

Who knows; they decided Azure should support Linux and Office should be on every platform, so anything's possible. Times have changed and maybe the argument for closing off ("fully integrating") their dev ecosystem is weaker now.

Honestly, that would be amazing. but I think Microsoft right now is too focused on their own stuff, even more than before. Windows (including Azure) and Office is their focus. .Net seems to be wandering off a bit.

well if i remember correctly in the /build/ of this year I saw a part in which some of the microsoft staff were talking about xamarin and the integration with visual studio. At the same time the CTO Miguel De Icasa is a microsoft MVP.

So maybe the idea of buying them is not so strange.

Miguel de Icaza has said numerous times that they are yet not interested in buying Microsoft.

I don't think Xamarin is in the position to buy Microsoft :D

>>maybe they should release some more of their ecosystem to make it viable for more startups to use .NET. Someone small using some free compilers/libraries and MySQL may eventually be a prospect to buy VS and SQL Server

And there's the thing right there - I don't think Microsoft really cares much about startups - after all, the success rate is fairly low for startups and it probably doesn't seem worth it to them to "invest" in businesses that are, more often than not, going to fail. Putting their marketing budget behind large corporations and governments is far more lucrative for them.

Cough... http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/

Not to mention Microsoft Ventures http://microsoftventures.com/

They shouldn't, for the same reason all other cross platform panaceas suck.

Anyone with truly high value apps, like Facebook, will port to as many platforms as have an audience.

What Microsoft could do is to stop the self-injury by making Windows work equally completely and compatibly everywhere and having the .NET runtime work with a Modern/Metro UI library and loosening up the Modern/Metro sandbox enough to be compatible with legacy .NET apps.

The CLR should have been the key to compatibility and having lots of apps everywhere. How can a Windows device not have a gazillion apps?

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