[AUmrysh]

It's clear to me that Xamarin is trying to get everyone to pay right now. The free license won't even allow you to build the Xamarin.Forms demo, and Forms is one of the most significant new features they added. Cross platform apps with a common UI and codebase, no more separate views for each platform, and data binding! I think they're scaring off small developers by requiring the several hundred dollar investment to use Xamarin, even if it is a great product.

Where I work, we chose Xamarin over PhoneGap/Cordova.

[pauloortins]

Totally agree. Prices could be lower and they would have a bigger market share in mobile development.

[tejas-manohar]

Good decision since Xamarin is much more native when compared to PhoneGap/Cordova (Titanium is another thing I've been looking at). The student discounts for $99/year/platform should be the normal price.

[McGnarlySheen]

Every benefit you just mentioned PhoneGap/Cordova has... and it's free...