Salesforce.com Targets C# and .NET Developers for Mobile Apps with New Xamarin Pack -- Visual Studio Magazine

Salesforce.com Targets C# and .NET Developers for Mobile Apps with New Xamarin Pack

Currently, there is no plan to support WinRT development, although the company says it will consider it if demand is there.

By Jeffrey Schwartz
07/30/2013

Salesforce.com is looking to appeal to C# and .NET developers to build mobile applications that tie into its popular enterprise software as a service (SaaS) cloud platform.

The company's bid to draw C# developers includes the addition of the Xamarin Mobile Pack, one of four new modules added today to its recently launched Salesforce Platform Mobile Services offering for enterprise developers.

Based on the Mono framework, Salesforce.com's new Xamarin Mobile Pack is designed to let C# and .NET developers build native iOS and Android apps and integrate them into the suite of Salesforce Platform Mobile Services. "We're going to turn on millions of C# developers to start building iPad and iOS and Android Apps working with Salesforce data," Seligman said.

Asked if there were plans for native support for the Windows RT, Seligman said the company has seen no requests. "We have seen no demand for Windows RT," Seligman explained. "We're seeing demand for iOS, Android and HTML5 from customers and developers. What we are doing for these cross-platform devices is supporting...regular native Web with HTML5. " Seligman said that if developers request native support for other platforms, Salesforce.com will add it.

The Xamarin Mobile Pack is one of four packs added to the Salesforce Platform Mobile Services offering. Also included is the SmartSync Framework, a module that helps developers build apps that can better respond to intermittent connectivity.

"What we've done is provided a library, a JavaScript framework to make it very easy for a developer to work with data offline, online seamlessly," Seligman said. "With SmartSync, developers can write [applications] that handle that online-offline-online transition super painlessly; it just works, and they sync back to the cloud."

The two other developer Mobile Packs include Knockout.js, which Seligman said eases data binding and is suited for rapid development of mobile apps; and Appery.io, targeted at letting users (non-developers) map UI components and data to the Salesforce Platform Mobile Services via their browsers.

Also part of the upgraded offerings are new Mobile Design Templates and Mobile Gallery with 20 open source HTML5/CSS templates that serve popular business requirements, Seligman said. He described them in a blog post today as "intuitive predesigned templates [that] are a snap to edit and connect with any customer data in Salesforce by using your favorite Mobile Pack."

About the Author

Jeffrey Schwartz is editor of Redmond magazine and also covers cloud computing for Virtualization Review's Cloud Report. In addition, he writes the Channeling the Cloud column for Redmond Channel Partner. Follow him on Twitter @JeffreySchwartz.

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