Microsoft just announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire Xamarin, Inc. (named one of nine top start-ups running the internet), a platform provider for mobile app development. At the moment both companies have not disclosed the financial terms. The news is not a great shock as the two companies have worked together for some years, while back in 2014 it was rumored that Microsoft was in the “final stages of negotiations” to buy Xamarin.

This could be a big move by Microsoft to further push its apps on more platforms. With Xamarin in the bag, a company whose platform allows developers to create native apps for iOS, Android, Mac, as well as Windows, using Microsoft’s C#, it would seem Microsoft’s range just expanded.

We’ll know more soon as Scott Guthrie,  Executive Vice President, Cloud and Enterprise Group at Microsoft announced that he’ll be discussing his vision in a few weeks at the Microsoft Build conference on March 30^th, and also at Xamarin Evolve starting April 28th.

In a blog post Guthrie talked about Microsoft’s close and long-standing relationship with Xamarin, adding that the acquisition would make  Microsoft’s, “World class developer tools and services even better with deeper integration and seamless mobile app dev experiences.” Guthrie goes on to say that, “ The combination of Xamarin, Visual Studio, Visual Studio Team Services, and Azure provides a complete mobile app dev solution that provides everything you need to develop, test, deliver and instrument mobile apps for every device.”

Xamarin, started in 2011, currently has around 350 employees (1.3 million developers) around the world working with in the region of 15,000 customers. Its annual revenue, according to CEO and co-founder Nat Friedman, is in the tens of millions of dollars.

Friedman called the acquisition a “perfect fit” for Xamarin’s team and products and Microsoft’s  mobile-first, cloud-first strategy. “This acquisition is a new beginning for Xamarin—the company and its products—and is an opportunity to help many, many more developers build great apps,” said Friedman.

Photo credit: Microsoft