With the recent Microsoft Xamarin takeover it might be the right time to re-evaluate your current mobile app (strategy) and the technology stack it’s based on.
If you have been in the position where you needed to define and give shape to a mobile strategy then you’re probably familiar with the choice that needs to be made with respect to the technology stack to use.
In general this choice always ends up with 2 possibilities: either go native or choose a cross-platform solution (MADP). Within the cross-platform domain Xamarin has been one of the best alternatives there is, probably right next to going for a hybrid (HTML5) solution.
However, while being a technical sane solution Xamarin always had a few down-sides, the steep license price being one of them. While this is common in enterprise IT-land in general, it is not in the mobile space: both Apple and Google have made their mobile toolchain completely free and available for everyone. And it’s not that these respective toolchains aren’t any good; the constant battle to favour developers has resulted in arguably the best developer environments available.
So there are many ‘Microsoft houses’ out there that decided to go either native or go HTML5 for their mobile strategy, resulting in the challenge to integrate and incorporate ‘alien technology’. And while you might have climbed that hill and think you’re on top of it, now is the time to re-evaluate.
The first thing that Microsoft did when they bought Xamarin was announcing that the whole stack would be open-sourced. In the past few months they’ve kept word and indeed open-sourced various Xamarin components with an impressive speed and tenacity.
And it is exactly this move that makes it possibly worthwhile to rethink your mobile strategy. Even if you’ve got mobile apps that are mature on all levels, the idea of having them build with open-source technology that is common throughout your organisation is tantalizing. Imagine the possibilities of knowledge sharing, code reuse, efficiency improvements etc.
“But what about all those investments we’ve made into our mobile strategy? Are we’re throwing that away?” Certainly not, you should think about this as the next step. As with every other piece of software mobile apps have a (technical) life span as well, and it’s arguably even shorter than enterprise software in general. So re-thinking your mobile strategy on a regular base is good approach anyhow, and switching technology could be an additional trigger to this.
We at Xablu are in the perfect spot to help you out and guide you in this process. Not only are we senior on Xamarin and native app development, we’re also deeply knowledgeable about the processes involved. Would you want to know more about the possibilities? Get in touch!
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