SAN FRANCISCO & GOTHENBERG, Sweden--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Xamarin today announced that it has acquired RoboVM. Xamarin is the leading enterprise mobility solution and the only mobile application development platform that enables native iOS and Android development in C#. RoboVM is the only company in the industry that enables native iOS and Android development in Java. The acquisition brings together the top two languages in enterprise development and a path to mobile for nearly every enterprise developer.
The two companies have taken nearly identical approaches to enabling successful enterprise mobility. Xamarin and RoboVM apps are fully native iOS and Android apps—native UI, native performance, and complete access all of APIs for each device platform—built from a shared code base across device platforms. Xamarin is the only company with this approach for C# developers, and RoboVM is the only company with this approach for Java developers. The acquisition means that Xamarin now controls the cross-platform mobile development market for the most widely adopted languages capable of native, client-to-server, cloud-to-mobile development.
“If Xamarin were to build a Java solution from scratch, it would look like RoboVM because they took the same native-first approach in their design,” says Nat Friedman, CEO and Xamarin cofounder. “If you love Java, you are going to love RoboVM for iOS and Android development.”
IDC estimates that between five and seven million developers work in Java, making it one of the largest developer ecosystems in the industry (source). The language for enterprise applications and data center operations, as well as for Android app development, Java is used in a broad array of devices beyond smartphones and tablets, including: wearables, cars, drones, TVs, refrigerators, and many other IoT devices. While enterprises have largely skilled internal development teams, they struggle to fully staff the capabilities needed for iOS and Android development; Forrester reports that 50% of organizations have fewer than five developers in-house, barely enough to field a single mobile team, especially if app is built for both iOS and Android. (source)
RoboVM allows enterprises to achieve broach reach and easily extend native, Java-based Android apps to iOS—or to develop iOS apps from scratch—all while leveraging their Java skills, resources, and code.
“Our mission is to enable Java developers to create beautiful native mobile apps quickly,” says Henric Müller, CEO at RoboVM. “Xamarin’s market-leading position in enterprise mobility means that we will be able to scale our reach and enable mobile success for millions of developers.”
Xamarin takes its hyper-growth model to the Java market
Key to Xamarin’s success is the large, global C# developer community that has transitioned to mobile development via the Xamarin Platform. Unique developer downloads have more than doubled in the last year, now at over 1.2 million, and sales have grown at an even faster rate.
Xamarin and RoboVM will operate independently to ensure each team stays focused on their C# and Java user bases respectively. RoboVM will leverage Xamarin’s growth models in developer marketing, sales, and customer success to scale their business; and RoboVM customers will benefit from Xamarin’s enterprise-grade mobile expertise and full mobile lifecycle offerings.
Following a $54 million series C funding round in August of 2014—the largest single round of any mobile app platform company—Xamarin expanded into adjacent areas of the mobile application lifecycle with Xamarin Test Cloud and Xamarin Insights.
Xamarin Test Cloud ensures high quality apps by allowing customers to test apps on over 2,000 devices and receive results within minutes, versus the days or weeks-long feedback cycle of manual testing. The service works for any native or hybrid app, not just apps built in C# with the Xamarin Platform. Xamarin Insights provides sophisticated crash and user reporting to further improve app quality and performance for mobile C# developers. The company will soon bring this functionality to Java developers targeting iOS and Android. This acquisition gives Xamarin another built-in source of new customers for Xamarin Test Cloud and Xamarin Insights, and new lifecycle products as the company expands its product portfolio.
According to Al Hilwa, Program Director for IDC's Application Development Software research, “Using a cross-platform application development approach has emerged as one of the most popular approaches for building enterprise mobile apps, especially when coupled with generation of native platform code. Xamarin is able to address the two largest ecosystems for native mobile application development today with its support for C# and Java.”
To learn more about Xamarin, view the company’s enterprise offerings. To learn more about the acquisition of RoboVM, visit: https://robovm.com/blog/.
About Xamarin
Xamarin is the new standard for enterprise mobile development and quality. With over 1.2 million developer downloads and a global customer base in 120 countries, Xamarin is used to accelerate the creation of high-quality, high-performance, mission-critical consumer and enterprise apps. Xamarin powers mobile development for more than 100 of the Fortune 500 companies and is a Visionary in Gartner’s 2015 Magic Quadrant report for Mobile Application Development Platforms. For more information, please visit: xamarin.com or follow us @xamarinhq.