Mono for Android Could Bring More Windows Developers to Android
Novell has announced that Mono for Android is now available for C# and .NET developers to enjoy. If you don’t know, these languages are widely-used by Windows developers on the desktop and is the primary programming language for developing apps on Microsoft’s mobile devices.
With Mono, developers who swear up and down by C# and .NET can now bypass java and develop apps for Android in the language they love. It’s similar to what kept Mozilla from developing Firefox for Android – the Android SDK only had support for applications written in Java while Mozilla does everything in C++. The release of the NDK opened that opportunity and now Firefox is one of the most popular browsers on the market.
We’re not sure who exactly would want to or will be bringing these Windows-bred applications to Android so it’ll be interesting to see how well Mono takes off. It’s a pricey technology to pick up, though – you’ll have to pay $400 for the professional edition of the license and $999 if you’re developing for enterprise. Those who already paid for MonoTouch – which is Mono for iOS – can get 50% off of the Android version. [via ReadWriteWeb]