There is no link between Astoria and Xamarin.
File this under weird rumors. This is the sort of rumor that is generated by the ignorant. Some are claiming, now in light of the Xamarin acquisition news, that this is the reason Microsoft killed off project Astoria.
While I don't work at Microsoft, I think this is quite clearly just non-sense. As others have pointed out, one allows Android on Windows Phone, the other allows .Net code to be executed on Android. In other words, there is really no overlap beyond the word "Android". They are, if anything, complimentary. If you were just looking for the simple answer... that is it.
The second problem is Project Islandwood. If this were a viable excuse for axing Astoria, then Islandwood would be dead as well. Xamarin isn't just about Android, it is a cross-platform development tool which hits more platforms than just Android. No one has even bothered to explain why one but not the other.
The next is that while the "official" news is only fairly recent, the actual signs (and some fairly concrete ones) are several months old. If Microsoft were announcing that they had acquired (past tense) Xamarin, then it is possible that this was in the works back then. But, what they announced was an intent to acquire Xamarin. In other words, they likely only just got started in the process fairly recently. Normally companies wait until after an acquisition is finalized to make an announcement. But, I suspect that the earlier notice is because it impacts their //Build conference and perhaps near term product changes. Also, the two companies are close partners and the deal is probably highly unlikely to fall through. So, the Xamarin acquisition probably wasn't even on the table when they started slowly killing off Astoria.
But why kill off Astoria? I don't know. I suspect concerns over legal exposure. Google and Oracle are not on good terms and it looks like even Google is trying to break its Java dependencies. They may even have agreements with either Google or Oracle which might prevent them from implementing key features in addition to fears over being sued for the same reasons Google was.
Microsoft's official statement sounds like garbage. Claiming that it made it confusing to have more than one bridge for their Android and iOS apps. It ignores several realities. Firstly, not every app is on both platforms or an iOS. This means Android exclusive devs get the boot. Also, not all apps are created alike, and many devs may target iOS and Android, but one version may have more features or be more stable, and those devs no longer get a choice in which codebase they choose to move. I really can't even imagine a real dev actually saying what Microsoft claims they were told.
Another rumor says that they killed it because it was too easy to make Android apps run on Windows and didn't want the barrier to be too low. I think Android would definitely be the easiest to get up and running due to the open source nature of the core product and the use of a Java-like language which is well understood. But, I don't think that reason alone would compel Nadella to kill the project. Windows Phone is too small a segment to cry over. In his "Cloud first, Mobile first" vision, universally supported apps would fit in well. It fixes the app gap and may even help the failing platform.
While it isn't clear what the exact reasoning is, it seems clear that it had nothing to do with Xamarin.
While I don't work at Microsoft, I think this is quite clearly just non-sense. As others have pointed out, one allows Android on Windows Phone, the other allows .Net code to be executed on Android. In other words, there is really no overlap beyond the word "Android". They are, if anything, complimentary. If you were just looking for the simple answer... that is it.
The second problem is Project Islandwood. If this were a viable excuse for axing Astoria, then Islandwood would be dead as well. Xamarin isn't just about Android, it is a cross-platform development tool which hits more platforms than just Android. No one has even bothered to explain why one but not the other.
The next is that while the "official" news is only fairly recent, the actual signs (and some fairly concrete ones) are several months old. If Microsoft were announcing that they had acquired (past tense) Xamarin, then it is possible that this was in the works back then. But, what they announced was an intent to acquire Xamarin. In other words, they likely only just got started in the process fairly recently. Normally companies wait until after an acquisition is finalized to make an announcement. But, I suspect that the earlier notice is because it impacts their //Build conference and perhaps near term product changes. Also, the two companies are close partners and the deal is probably highly unlikely to fall through. So, the Xamarin acquisition probably wasn't even on the table when they started slowly killing off Astoria.
But why kill off Astoria? I don't know. I suspect concerns over legal exposure. Google and Oracle are not on good terms and it looks like even Google is trying to break its Java dependencies. They may even have agreements with either Google or Oracle which might prevent them from implementing key features in addition to fears over being sued for the same reasons Google was.
Microsoft's official statement sounds like garbage. Claiming that it made it confusing to have more than one bridge for their Android and iOS apps. It ignores several realities. Firstly, not every app is on both platforms or an iOS. This means Android exclusive devs get the boot. Also, not all apps are created alike, and many devs may target iOS and Android, but one version may have more features or be more stable, and those devs no longer get a choice in which codebase they choose to move. I really can't even imagine a real dev actually saying what Microsoft claims they were told.
Another rumor says that they killed it because it was too easy to make Android apps run on Windows and didn't want the barrier to be too low. I think Android would definitely be the easiest to get up and running due to the open source nature of the core product and the use of a Java-like language which is well understood. But, I don't think that reason alone would compel Nadella to kill the project. Windows Phone is too small a segment to cry over. In his "Cloud first, Mobile first" vision, universally supported apps would fit in well. It fixes the app gap and may even help the failing platform.
While it isn't clear what the exact reasoning is, it seems clear that it had nothing to do with Xamarin.
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