Microsoft is embracing open platform more than ever before. Earlier today, Microsoft announced its plan to join Linux Foundation as a Platinum member and then announced the release of Visual Studio for Mac. Yes, its happening and it's happening because of CEO Satya Nadella.
Earlier this week, there were reports of Microsoft bringing Visual Studio to Mac and at Connect, Microsoft has finally announced a preview version. Microsoft is not porting Visual Studio from Windows to Mac rather the Mac variant is rebranded version of Xamarin Studio. Microsoft bought Xamarin, a popular mobile tool vendor in February 2016. The preview version of Visual Studio for Mac is available for download starting today.
Interestingly Visual Studio is not just stepping into Mac universe, Samsung has announced plans to launch a preview of Visual Studio Tools for Tizen. With Visual Studio for Mac, developers can write mobile, cloud and Mac apps on Apple's desktop ecosystem using C# and .Net. In April 2015, Microsoft announced Visual Studio Code, a cross platform code editor for Windows, Mac and Linux.
With Visual Studio for Mac, developers will not need a Windows PC or virtual machine to run their codes. Microsoft Visual Studio for Mac will hit general availability next year and eventually replace Xamarin Studio.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has announced Visual Studio 2017 release candidate for Windows. Visual Studio 2015 has passed 20 million installs while Visual Studio Code has managed 3.5 million installs, reports VentureBeat. Microsoft is also releasing a preview of new Visual Studio Mobile Center which acts a mission control for mobile app developers.
The Visual Studio Mobile Center will work regardless of programming language and it supports Android and iOS right now, with Windows 'coming soon'. At Connect 2016, Microsoft has expanded it vision of open source developer platform with Google joining .NET Foundation's Technical Steering Committee.