[hokkos]

Visual Studio doesn't run on Mac OS to make iOS apps, VS Code is still only an editor not an IDE. So Xamarin could be very useful for MS.

[Sir_Substance]

I'm not debating that Xamarins products are useful to Microsoft, I'm questioning the assertion that they haven't just consumed a competitor.

[mynameisvlad]

Considering Microsoft has no Mac IDE, I'm not sure how Xamarin could be considered a competitor.

[Sir_Substance]

...because Visual Studio is a C#/C++ IDE that works on Windows, and Xamarin Studio is also a C#/C++ IDE that works on Windows?

Xamarin Studio is a swiss army knife. I don't know about your use case, but I use it under the name Monodevelop on linux (not really sure what that association is) and as Xamarin studio on windows. For my use case, it's a C# and C++ IDE for desktop development, same as visual studio.

It's certainly not a MacOS only product, it supports all three platforms including windows.

[pjmlp]

Have you ever used .NET on its own platform?

Mono only supports a subset of the whole stack.

No sane .NET developer would use Mono on Windows, its purpose is .NET portability to other OSes.

[Sir_Substance]

Xamarin studio can be run against .net on windows, it's not mono specific.

[pjmlp]

Yes, but what is the value of doing that instead of using Visual Studio?!