©research2guidance | October 2013
Company License: Unrestricted access to all employees within your organization
Service offering evaluation and user rating
October 2013
XamarinProfile
©research2guidance | October 2013
Company License 2
CP-Tool Profile: Xamarin (by Xamarin)
About research2guidance
research2guidance is a strategy advisor and market research company. We concentrate on
the mobile app eco-system. Our service offerings include:
App Strategy: We help our clients in and outside of the mobile industry to develop their app
market strategy. Our consulting advisory projects are based on a set of predefined project
approaches including: App strategy development, App Evaluation, App Market Segment
Sizing, App Governance and App Marketing Spend Effectiveness.
App Market Reports: Our app market reports explore the major trends and developments
affecting the app markets. Separate research papers provide both general and specific
coverage of the market. The reports contain key insights for companies looking to enter or
deepen their engagement with the mobile applications market, providing data and analysis
on all relevant aspects of the market to ease investment decision-making.
App Market Surveys: We leverage our 70.000 app eco-system database to conduct surveys
and reports for our clients.
research2guidance UG
Berlin, Germany
+49 (0)30 609 89 33 60
www.research2guidance.com
©research2guidance | October 2013
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CP-Tool Profile: Xamarin (by Xamarin)
Related products and services:
Click on the covers to get more information
Need help with finding the right Cross-Platform Tool ? Use our standardized
CP Tool selection process to find the right tool for your app projects.
Contact the analyst Joachim Thiele-Schlesier: +49 (0) 30 609 89 33 60,
Cross-Platform Tool Benchmarking 2013: “The hidden champions of the app economy”
Detailed Cross-Platform Tool Benchmarking 2013: “A comparison of 10 leading tools for multi-platform app development”
Marmalade Profile: “Service offering and user rating”
Corona SDK Profile: “Service offering and user rating”
Unity 3D Profile: “Service offering and user rating”
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©research2guidance | October 2013
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CP-Tool Profile: Xamarin (by Xamarin)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Xamarin in a nutshell .......................................................................................................... 5
2. About this profile ................................................................................................................ 6
3. Scope of Xamarin’s service offering .................................................................................... 7
3.1. Device class and platform support and feature availability ........................................... 7
3.2. Target user groups and industries ................................................................................ 10
3.3. Estimated familiarization and development time ........................................................ 12
3.4. Xamarin offered support services ................................................................................. 13
4. User rating of Xamarin service offering ............................................................................ 14
4.1. User profiles and usage frequency ............................................................................... 14
4.2. Targeted industries and preferred app categories by Xamarin users .......................... 15
4.3. Xamarin complexity evaluation ..................................................................................... 17
4.4. Achieved time savings ................................................................................................... 18
4.5. User satisfaction with platform, API and HW support .................................................. 19
4.6. User satisfaction with Xamarin´s support service ......................................................... 23
4.7. User satisfaction with app quality ................................................................................. 24
4.8. Cost-performance rating of Xamarin ............................................................................ 25
5. Strengths and challenges .................................................................................................. 27
6. Appendix ........................................................................................................................... 28
6.1. Benchmarking methodology ......................................................................................... 28
6.2. About the authors ......................................................................................................... 31
6.3. List of figures and tables ............................................................................................... 32
©research2guidance | October 2013
Company License 5
CP-Tool Profile: Xamarin (by Xamarin)
1. XAMARIN IN A NUTSHELL
Xamarin, of the same name as its vendor, is a suite for cross-platform development and
deployment. It consists of Xamarin Studio, Xamarin.Android, Xamarin.iOS (formerly Mono
Touch), Xamarin.Mac including test cloud services, libraries and documentation.
Xamarin is built for professional mobile apps developers. Xamarin will be able to help developers publish mobile apps on tablets and smartphones as well as newer types of target devices like smart TVs or in-car devices. Xamarin is not suited for developers who want to build apps for feature phones or game consoles. With a wealth of APIs Xamarin gives professional developers a lot of options for their apps. In addition to the many APIs Xamarin offers a lot of hardware feature access.
Claim: “We have one of the highest customer satisfaction rates among all of the cross-
platform tools.”
USP: “Access to 100% of the native iOS and Android APIs - anything that can be done on
Objective-C and Java can be done in Xamarin in C#. Developers building apps with Xamarin
get fully native user experiences and performance with no compromises, and also get all of
the advantages of sharing code across device platforms (on average 75%).”
Reported number of developers: 375.000+
Reported number of apps: Not disclosed
Reference apps:
Pricing: License per seat using the solution
Starter: Free
Indie: US$ 300 / year
Business: US$ 1.000 / year
Enterprise: US$ 1.900 / year
Address: 430 Pacific Ave, San Francisco, CA 94133 (USA)
LabView TouchDraw Infinite Flight
©research2guidance | October 2013
Company License 6
CP-Tool Profile: Xamarin (by Xamarin)
2. ABOUT THIS PROFILE
This benchmarking report provides a “360-degree view” on Xamarin. It matches the
perspective of the vendor with the experience of Xamarin’s users.
The benchmarking results are based on two research projects conducted between May and
August 2013.
The first project examined the features of the tools and the additional service offerings of
the vendors. Research2guidance invited 90 cross-platform tool vendors, including Xamarin,
to provide company and tool information with the help of an online survey.
At the same time, users have been invited to share their experience with these tools. The
analysis asked for feedback on 16 dimensions including tool awareness, quality and
performance. The global online survey received over 1,000 responses from app developers
and publishers.
Xamarin has been one of the most rated tools. This report aggregates all information about
Xamarin into a comprehensive profile.
To allow the comparison of the Xamarin with similar CP Tools, the report also contrasts the
user ratings for Xamarin with the industry benchmark.
The report aims at giving a comprehensive decision support for the selection process of a CP
Tool that includes Xamarin.
©research2guidance | October 2013
Company License 7
CP-Tool Profile: Xamarin (by Xamarin)
3. SCOPE OF XAMARIN’S SERVICE OFFERING
Xamarin is a Cross Platform IDE1 Tool that allows native and web app publishing on a large
range of mobile and “non-mobile” platforms.
The description of the service offering is structured into 4 areas:
Device class and platform support and feature availability
The number of supported device classes and platforms is an indicator for the multi-
platform capability of a CP Tool. The variety of offered features determines the scope
of options when creating an app and it critically affects the app user experience.
Target user groups and industries
Some CP Tools have a focus on specific industries. Beyond an industrial focus, CP
Tools can target different user types according to company size or user profession.
Estimation of familiarization and development time
One of the major claims of CP Tools is to accelerate the app creation process. The
lower the complexity of a CP Tool, the faster a new user will be able to handle the
tool and start his app project.
Support service offerings
A good documentation and support can be a clear benefit of a CP Tool. CP Tools offer
different support channels. The quality of the service provided, is key differentiation
factor.
The description of the service offerings is based on information submitted by Xamarin.
3.1. DEVICE CLASS AND PLATFORM SUPPORT AND FEATURE AVAILABILITY
Xamarin is optimized for targeting smartphones, tablets and desktop for Windows and Mac.
Furthermore, it allows the development of apps that are optimized for smart TVs and in-car
devices.
Benchmark: Compared to other CP Tools, Xamarin belongs to the solutions which offer the
broadest device coverage.
1 CP IDE: Tools that allow multi-app/multi-platform app development. Most tools concentrate their output on native apps
but some also create web apps. These tools use their own SDK to develop a single code faster and compile it to meet native requirements.
©research2guidance | October 2013
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CP-Tool Profile: Xamarin (by Xamarin)
Table 1: Device class optimization of Xamarin
CP Tools aim to support various platforms. This applies not only for device classes, but also
for operating systems, mobile as well as stationary.
Xamarin supports iOS, Android, Windows Phone as well as desktop, Mac and HTML
(targeting mobile). Support for additional platforms in the near future has not been
announced.
Interestingly, Xamarin does not support Blackberry and does not plan on doing so in the
foreseeable future.
Table 2: Xamarin - platform support
Benchmark: Xamarin’s native platform coverage is in line with the CP Tools in the IDE2 class.
Xamarin’s support for HTML 5 stands out, as only 4 out of 17 CP IDE Tools offer apps for
HMTL 5 (mobile).
If a CP Tool supports a particular platform, the accessibility of specific device hardware
features and pre-installed applications is of interest. It is an indicator for the quality of the
platform support.
For the supported platforms, Xamarin allows access to all the device hardware features
shown below: accelerometer, GPS, vibration, camera, multi-touch, landscape orientation,
microphone, speaker, compass, speaker and NFC.
2 IDE: Integrated Development Environment, see Cross Platform App Development Benchmarking Report for a detailed
description of CP Tool categories
Device class Optimization
Smartphones X
Tablets X
Desktop / PC X
Smart TVs X
In-car devices X
Feature phones
Game consoles
Smar
t TV
s
X X X X X X X
mobile OSdesktop
OSother
©research2guidance | October 2013
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CP-Tool Profile: Xamarin (by Xamarin)
Accessibility of pre-installed is comprehensive for all iOS, Android and Windows: contacts,
filesystem IO, calendar, image library, in-app email, SMS etc.
Xamarin claims: “Our binding technology exposes all of the APIs available in iOS and Android
to your applications as regular C# class libraries. This means your Xamarin application can do
anything a platform, or device, offers, with native user interface and excellent performance.”
Table 3: Accessible device hardware features and pre-installed applications
Benchmark: With this feature richness and broad device class and platform support,
Xamarin is one of the most versatile cross-platform tools in the benchmarking.
Ready-made APIs allow the integration of functionalities, such as in-app advertising, in-app
purchase or social networks access, into mobile apps. The availability of ready-made APIs is a
quality indicator for platform support.
Xamarin offers broad integration of APIs, like analytics, advertising, mobile payment, billing
and social network integration, integration of enterprise applications and remote
monitoring.
Benchmark: Compared to the other CP IDE Tools, Xamarin offers the broadest set of
supported APIs. Xamarin offers the integration of all APIs that have been researched for this
report. Only one other tool (Appery.io) can claim to offer this many API options.
Accelerometer X X X X
GPS X X X X
Vibration X X X X
Camera X X X X
Multi touch/ Gesture X X X X
Landscape orientation X X X X
Compass X X X X
Speaker X X X X
Microfone X X X X
NFC X X X X
Contacts X X X X
Fi lesystem IO X X X X
Calendar X X X X
Image l ibrary X X X X
In-app emai l X X X X
Phone X X X X
SMS X X X X
MMS X X X X
Speech recognition X X X X
Maps X X X X
Accessible device hardware features
Accessible pre-installed applications
©research2guidance | October 2013
Company License 10
CP-Tool Profile: Xamarin (by Xamarin)
Table 4: Integration of APIs
3.2. TARGET USER GROUPS AND INDUSTRIES
Xamarin, like the majority of the observed tools, is not designed to develop apps for a
specific industry sector or app category.
Xamarin reference apps come from various industries like media apps (Rdio), utilities
(LabView, TouchDraw) and games (Draw A Stickman, Infinite Flight).
Integration
VOIP X
SMS X
MMS X
Social network access (e.g. Facebook) X
Advertising in apps (e.g. Inmobi)
X
Billing (e.g. credit card or operator billing)
X
Mobile payment (e.g. Paypal)/ In-app
payment X
Access to commerce platforms (e.g.
Magento) X
X
X
X
X
mHealth monitoring X
Remote monitoring: home energy X
Remote monitoring: entertainment X
Remote monitoring: home security X
Access to enterprise software (SAP, Oracle, etc.)
Monitoring
API
Communication
Commerce
Location based services (maps, routes, traffic)
App analytics (e.g. Distimo)
Text-to-speech transformation
©research2guidance | October 2013
Company License 11
CP-Tool Profile: Xamarin (by Xamarin)
Table 5: Target industries by Xamarin
Xamarin targets professional developers of all company sizes. It requires a background in
C++.
Benchmark: In terms of targeted company size, Xamarin is in line with the majority of the
tools researched for this report.
Industry Focus
General X
Utilities
Games
Retail
Hotels/ gastronomy
News/ Media
Sports
Medical/ health
IT
Financial
Education
Automotives
Heavy Industries
Aerospace/ defense
Government
Enterprise apps
©research2guidance | October 2013
Company License 12
CP-Tool Profile: Xamarin (by Xamarin)
Table 6: Xamarin – targeted company sizes and user types
3.3. ESTIMATED FAMILIARIZATION AND DEVELOPMENT TIME
The necessary time to learn to handle a CP Tool is an indicator for its complexity. The
average app development time mainly is an indicator for the complexity of app projects that
are realized with a CP Tool.
Xamarin claims that it takes weeks to learn to handle their SDK and an average application
take only days to develop. According to the necessary time to learn, Xamarin quite well
estimates the complexity of their tool.
Benchmark: Compared to the average app development time claimed by the vendors
themselves, Xamarin is in line with most of the other tools.
By stating that their users´ average app project have a duration of months, Xamarin
estimates the complexity of their users´ app projects of quite short length.
Benchmark: According to estimated app development time, Xamarin is in line with most CP
Tool vendors.
Availability
Consumers
Small X
Medium X
Enterprise X
Professional Developer X
Novice Developers
IT/ Telco Administrator
Business Administartor / CXO /
Management
Graphic Designers
Web developers /
web publishers
Non-Developers / Anyone
Other targeted
professions
Targeted Company Size
Targeted Profession
Target Group
©research2guidance | October 2013
Company License 13
CP-Tool Profile: Xamarin (by Xamarin)
Table 7: Complexity of Xamarin in terms of time-to-learn and average app development
time (vendor´s view)
3.4. XAMARIN OFFERED SUPPORT SERVICES
Xamarin offers all major support channels, except personal phone support. Support is only
provided in English.
Table 8: Xamarin - available support channels
Benchmark: Xamarin support services include more channels than average.
Complexity Indicator
Days
Weeks X
Months
Days X
Weeks
C#
Average app development time
Required programming skills
Parameter Value
Time-to-learn
Support channel Availablility
On-site project support X
On-site training/ tutorials X
Personal phone contact
Real time online support X
Time-delayed online support X
Online community X
Support available in languages:
©research2guidance | October 2013
Company License 14
CP-Tool Profile: Xamarin (by Xamarin)
4. USER RATING OF XAMARIN SERVICE OFFERING
The user rating is based on the results of the global online survey with more than 1.000
participants, evaluating more than 90 CP Tools. Out of the total ratings, 31 developers and
publishers have shared their experience with Xamarin.
4.1. USER PROFILES AND USAGE FREQUENCY
The user profile is an indicator for which user types a CP Tool is appropriate.
Xamarin users are mainly professional developers (85%). Xamarin is mainly used by single
developers and small companies, but have also users working for enterprises.
Figure 1: Xamarin users by company size and position
The usage intensity of a CP Tool shows how often a developer uses a CP Tool to deliver an
app project. It is a good indicator for how the requirements of the applications can be
realized with a specific CP Tool. This applies the more with increasing number and diversity
of projects a user conducts.
On average, Xamarin users developed 9 apps in the last twelve months.
Source: Global Cross Platform Tool Benchmarking 2013© research2guidance | 2013
Xamarin is used by all company sizes from single developers to enterprises
Xamarin:User by company size
Just Me32%
Small business
48%
Medium business
12%
Enterprise8%
User by position in the company
Professional developer
85%
Business administrator/ Management
8%
Graphic designer
3%
Other4%
©research2guidance | October 2013
Company License 15
CP-Tool Profile: Xamarin (by Xamarin)
Benchmark: Output quantity of apps of Xamarin users is below average for CP IDEs (across
all CP IDEs the average is 14 apps).
More than half of Xamarin users developed more than 50% of their apps with Xamarin. 26%
of users developed exclusively with Xamarin.
Benchmark: In terms of CP Tool usage intensity, Xamarin users are in line with other users of
CP IDE Tools in the benchmarking.
Figure 2: Xamarin users - total number of published apps and share of Xamarin apps
4.2. TARGETED INDUSTRIES AND PREFERRED APP CATEGORIES BY XAMARIN
USERS
Selecting the right CP Tool also depends on the industry and app category the app publisher
wants to target. CP Tools sometimes offer industry or app category-specific features like
design templates or interfaces to standard software packages that are commonly used
within an industry.
The comparison for which industries app developer make use of a CP Tool is a good indicator
for the quality of the industry-specific features of a CP Tool.
Source: Global Cross Platform Tool Benchmarking 2013© research2guidance | 2013
45% are just occasional users of Xamarin
Xamarin users:Total no. of published apps in the last 12 months
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Share of apps developed with Phone Gap in the last 12 months in %
Intensity of usage
55% Specialists
45% Occsional users
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
0 1-3 4-10 11-20 21-100
# of apps developed in the last 12 months
ᴓ = 9 apps ᴓ = 55%
©research2guidance | October 2013
Company License 16
CP-Tool Profile: Xamarin (by Xamarin)
Xamarin is used to mainly develop apps for the following industries: retail utilities, transport
and logistics, news/ info/ media, healthcare and pharma, IT, games, sports, food and
beverage, financial and oil and gas.
Figure 3: Xamarin users - industry focus when using Xamarin
The spectrum of app categories which Xamarin users developed apps for is also broad.
Utilities, productivity, business and travel are the most common app categories.
Benchmark: Xamarin’s targeted app categories differ from most of the other CP IDE Tools as
users don’t use the tool to develop games as much as users from other tools.
Source: Global Cross Platform Tool Benchmarking 2013© research2guidance | 2013
Xamarin is a generalist, suitable to target various industriesXamarin:Industry focus when using Xamarin
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
INDUSTRY FOCUS
©research2guidance | October 2013
Company License 17
CP-Tool Profile: Xamarin (by Xamarin)
Figure 4: Xamarin users´ app category focus when using Xamarin
Hence, Xamarin keeps the claim to be an “allrounder” tool. Users have a broad spectrum of
target markets when developing with it.
On average, Xamarin users target 2-3 app categories.
Benchmark: The app category spread matches the results for Phone Gap, JQuery Mobile and
Titanium. Users of CP Tools with designated industry focus, such as Unity 3D and
Marmalade, each on average just targeted 1-2 categories.
4.3. XAMARIN COMPLEXITY EVALUATION
Xamarin claims that it takes not more than weeks to learn to handle their tool (s.a.).
The results of the benchmarking indicate that Xamarin is right with this statement.
62% of Xamarin users managed to handle the tool within days. Xamarin is one of the few
tools in the benchmarking that could be mastered by such a big share of users in this short
amount of time.
For most tools in the benchmarking this was not the case. Probably driven by the intention
to present the simplicity of their solution, vendors of CP Tools often have been too
enthusiastic regarding complexity and learning time.
©research2guidance | October 2013
Company License 18
CP-Tool Profile: Xamarin (by Xamarin)
Average development time for an app created with Xamarin is measured in weeks. But there
are also 35% of app projects taking months rather than weeks.
Benchmark: Across all CP Tools 25% of app projects took days, 46% weeks and 25% months.
The vast majority of Xamarin’s users rate the complexity of the tools as moderate or low.
Benchmark: The complexity of Xamarin, as perceived by the users, averages the
benchmarking results.
Figure 5: Complexity of Xamarin in terms of time-to-learn and average app development
time (users view); Complexity rating
4.4. ACHIEVED TIME SAVINGS
CP Tools are designed to reduce app development time for multi- platform publishing.
Against the background of the normal project length is the time saving, made possible by the
use of the CP Tool, an important indicator of the quality of the tool.
Xamarin users do confirm that they have realized significant time savings against standard
app development approaches. 84% of Xamarin users realized time-savings of 30% and more
Source: Global Cross Platform Tool Benchmarking 2013© research2guidance | 2013
Xamarin is of medium complexity compared to other CP Tools
Xamarin: Complexity in terms of „Familiarization time“ and „Average app development time“User rating: Complexity
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Average app development time
Familiarization time
Days Weeks Months
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Complexity rating
Low Average High
COMPLEXITYJust a few hours with
previous knowledge of .NET and Android/iOS.
Using Xamarian.Mono for Android you can use MS
Visual Studio 2010 or 2012. Work perfectly, no Need to learn a new development
environment
©research2guidance | October 2013
Company License 19
CP-Tool Profile: Xamarin (by Xamarin)
compared to developing with native SDK. Time-savings of more than 50% have been realized
by 53% of users.
16% of Xamarin users claim to not have been able to shorten their app development time.
Benchmark: Time savings with Xamarin are similar to those that have been achieved with
Corona SDK and Unity 3D. Time savings with Xamarin are above average.
Figure 6: Realized time-savings in app development with Xamarin
4.5. USER SATISFACTION WITH PLATFORM, API AND HW SUPPORT
Xamarin users mainly target iOS and Android, further Windows 8 and Phone. Windows for
desktop and Mac are the least targeted.
Satisfaction with the Xamarin platform support (90% of users) is high.
Benchmark: Satisfaction level of Xamarin’s platform coverage is above average in the
benchmarking. However, higher satisfaction levels have been reached by JQuery Mobile,
Unity 3D and Marmalade (95% of satisfied users).
Source: Global Cross Platform Tool Benchmarking 2013© research2guidance | 2013
Only 16% of Xamarin users did not realize any time savings with the tool
Xamarin: Realized time savings in app development
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
50%+faster
50%faster
40%faster
30%faster
20%faster
10%faster
0%faster
10%slower
20%slower
30%slower
40%slower
50%slower
TIME SAVINGS
SlowerFaster
High: 84% Moderate: 0% No time savings: 16%
It depends on your architecture mostly and not only on the tool. I coud move an app's backend from Windows 8 RT to Android literally within hours, but only because I structured it from the beginning having in mind to target different
platforms. UI is more complex though
Development is faster, but significant time spent trying to
improve startup time... eventually rewriting native.
Cross platform development in a platform (.NET) that I already
mastered with all the benifts it brings over Java or ObjectiveC.
©research2guidance | October 2013
Company License 20
CP-Tool Profile: Xamarin (by Xamarin)
Figure 7: Targeted platforms by Xamarin users; satisfaction with platform support
Availability of cloud API services (e.g. operator billing, in-app advertisement, app analytics or
shop systems), accessibility of device hardware features (e.g. microphone, camera, speaker)
and pre-installed applications (e.g. calendar, address book) help to manage the app lifecycle,
ease the development process and/or allow the creation of sophisticated apps in terms of
functionalities as well as look-and-feel.
Access to APIs is for most of Xamarin users a nice-to-have feature.
Only 24% of Xamarin users rate access to e.g. SMS, analytics ad billing as “critical”.
Benchmark: Xamarin user API access importance rating is below average across users of CP
Tools.
Not surprisingly, the majority of Xamarin users only “rarely” or “never” make use of these
features.
Benchmark: Xamarin user API usage is below average across users of CP Tools.
Even though API services are not being used very often by the users, the major share of
users is happy with the offer.
Benchmark: Service satisfaction with cloud API services among Xamarin users is among the
highest in the benchmarking.
Source: Global Cross Platform Tool Benchmarking 2013© research2guidance | 2013
Satisfaction with platform support is above average among Xamarin users
Xamarin: Targeted OS, platform support satisfaction
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Android iOs Windows 8 Windows(desktop)
WindowsPhone
Html(targetingmobile)
Html(targetingdesktop)
OS X(desktop)
TARGETED OS
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Satisfaction with platform support
Satisfied Unsatisfied
Mono for Android Targets only Android. But I could reuse my
.NET code from Windows Desktop and
Windows 8
©research2guidance | October 2013
Company License 21
CP-Tool Profile: Xamarin (by Xamarin)
Figure 8: Importance, usage and satisfaction with Xamarin cloud API services
Access to device hardware features is rated critical by 67% of Xamarin users.
64 % of Xamarin users use hardware features, like microphone, speaker or camera, at least
sometimes in turns their app projects.
The majority of users is “satisfied” with the support Xamarin offers.
Benchmark: Xamarin users regard access to device hardware features slightly more
important than CP Tool users on average. Satisfaction with the service as well is above
average.
Source: Global Cross Platform Tool Benchmarking 2013© research2guidance | 2013
Service satisfaction with cloud API services is highest among Xamarin users
Xamarin cloud API services: Importance, usage intensity and service satisfaction
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Usage Intensity
Intensely Often Sometimes Rarely Never
CLOUD API SERVICES
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Service satisfaction
Very satisfied Satisfied Neutral
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Importance
Critical Nice to have Not relevant
©research2guidance | October 2013
Company License 22
CP-Tool Profile: Xamarin (by Xamarin)
Figure 9: Importance, usage and satisfaction with Xamarin accessible device hardware
features
The accessibility of pre-installed applications is rated “critical” by 47% of users.
60% of Xamarin users at least use pre-installed apps sometimes.
Benchmark: Usage intensity of Xamarin access features for e.g. calendar or contact book
integration is second highest in the benchmarking. Only Phone Gap has more “intense” or
“often” users of this feature.
Satisfaction level is high. 72% of user are “very satisfied” or “satisfied” with the app support
of Xamarin.
Benchmark: Service satisfaction among Xamarin users is the highest in the benchmarking.
Overall satisfaction with all three features, availability of cloud API services, accessible device
hardware features and pre-installed applications is above average.
Source: Global Cross Platform Tool Benchmarking 2013© research2guidance | 2013
Satisfaction with accessibility of device hardware features is above average
Xamarin accessible device hardware features: Importance, usage intensity and service satisfaction
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Usage intensity
Intensely Often Sometimes Rarely Never
DEVICE HW FEATURES
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Service satisfaction
Very satisfied Satisfied Neutral
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Importance
Critical Nice to have Not relevant
©research2guidance | October 2013
Company License 23
CP-Tool Profile: Xamarin (by Xamarin)
Figure 10: Importance, usage and satisfaction with Xamarin accessible pre-installed
applications
4.6. USER SATISFACTION WITH XAMARIN´S SUPPORT SERVICE
Support services help to solve problems that occur during app projects. For all CP Tools, and
in particular for those of high complexity, a helping support service increases their
attractiveness. The variety of offered support channels and even more the satisfaction level
with the support services are indicators for the quality of the customer service of a CP Tool.
Online community and time-delayed online support are most frequently used by Xamarin
developers.
93% of Xamarin users rate the support “good” or “very good”.
Benchmark: Satisfaction with the support service is the highest in the benchmarking.
Xamarin user on the user support: “Very good isn't enough. Amazing comes close.”
Source: Global Cross Platform Tool Benchmarking 2013© research2guidance | 2013
Satisfaction with accessibility of pre-installed applications among Xamarin users is highest in the benchmarking
Xamarin accessible pre-installed applications: Importance, usage intensity and service satisfaction
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Usage intensity
Intensely Often Sometimes Rarely Never
PRE-INSTALLED APPS
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Service satisfaction
Very satisfied Satisfied Neutral
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Importance
Critical Nice to have Not relevant
©research2guidance | October 2013
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CP-Tool Profile: Xamarin (by Xamarin)
Figure 11: Usage of Xamarin support channels and support service satisfaction
4.7. USER SATISFACTION WITH APP QUALITY
An important indicator for the performance of the different CP Tools is the quality of the
apps that have been developed with the help of a CP Tool. The quality of an app depends on
the graphical standard, the usability, the performance, the revenue potential and how
secure the app is against threats from viruses, data theft etc.
The quality of apps that have been developed with Xamarin is rated as high. This rating
refers to the revenue potential, security, performance, usability and design features.
App revenue potential is rated same or higher by more the 80% of the users.
Performance of Xamarin apps have been rated by 74% of users as native-like. Although
performance is their major weakness, Xamarin apps received second best ratings in the
benchmarking according to this characteristic.
89% of Xamarin users rate the usability of their apps as native-like.
100% of Xamarin users rate the security as native-like or even better.
89% of Xamarin user rate design quality of their apps same or better than native apps.
Source: Global Cross Platform Tool Benchmarking 2013© research2guidance | 2013
Online-communities and time-delayed online support are the most frequently support channels
Xamarin support:Usage and service satisfaction
SUPPORT
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Online community Time-delayedonline support
On-site training /tutorials
Real-time onlinesupport
On-site projectsupport
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Service satisfaction
Very good Good Average
Very good isn't enough. Amazing comes close.
©research2guidance | October 2013
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CP-Tool Profile: Xamarin (by Xamarin)
Benchmark: Xamarin apps are among the best rated apps in the benchmarking for app
quality.
Figure 12: Xamarin app quality rating
4.8. COST-PERFORMANCE RATING OF XAMARIN
Cost-performance ratio is an overall indicator of how efficient app developers rate the CP
Tool-supported development and publishing process of an app.
Xamarin offers price tiers for all kinds of users, from starters to enterprises. This pricing for
the Xamarin suite seems to be well suited for Xamarin clients.
Xamarin users rate the cost-performance ratio high. 44% of all Xamarin users rate the cost-
performance ratio as ”good value”.
Benchmark: Overall cost-performance rating is above average tool rating.
Source: Global Cross Platform Tool Benchmarking 2013© research2guidance | 2013
Xamarin apps are among the best apps in the benchmarking
Xamarin app quality rating vs. native apps
-40% -20% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Design
Usability
Performance
Security
Generated app revenues
Same or higher Lower Much lower
APP QUALITY
Startup take a Little bit longer, thats where the Performance is lower, if the app is running
there is no difference to notice
Its the same as native. But you can reuse.
Development is faster, but significant time spent trying to improve startup time...
eventually rewriting native.
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CP-Tool Profile: Xamarin (by Xamarin)
Figure 13: Xamarin - cost-performance ratio (user rating)
Source: Global Cross Platform Tool Benchmarking 2013© research2guidance | 2013
Cost-performance ratio of Xamarin is rated best across all observed CP Tools.
Xamarin: User rating of cost-performance ratio
Good value44%
Okay56%
COST-PERFORMANCE RATIO
Great Integration with Visual Studio
©research2guidance | October 2013
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CP-Tool Profile: Xamarin (by Xamarin)
5. STRENGTHS AND CHALLENGES
User rating of Xamarin is overall positive: compared to the industry benchmark, the
following strengths and weaknesses can be drawn from the feedback of Xamarin and CP Tool
users.
Strengths:
Very high user satisfaction with cost-performance ratio
Access to many device types
Versatile app categories and industries targetable
API and feature richness
Very high quality of user support
High time savings
High app quality
Challenges:
No BlackBerry support
Background in professional development required
Xamarin is a clear “allrounder”. The tool is suited for a broad variety of mobile app projects
and target smart TVs and in-car devices as well. Xamarin claims to have the highest user
satisfaction among CP Tools. These results indicate that user satisfaction with Xamarin is in
fact among the best in the CP Tool landscape. Tool complexity is acceptable, documentation
is good, the support services are excellent, app quality is high. According to the
benchmarking results, Xamarin is the tool of choice when looking for a generalist CP IDE that
requires C++.
©research2guidance | October 2013
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CP-Tool Profile: Xamarin (by Xamarin)
6. APPENDIX
6.1. BENCHMARKING METHODOLOGY
The profile is an excerpt from the Global Cross-Platform App Development Tool
Benchmarking.
This benchmarking of cross-platform development tools is based on two research projects
conducted between May and August 2013.
The vendor analysis examines the tool features, USPs3 of the solutions, penetration and the
service offering of the vendors. Research2guidance invited 90 cross-platform tool vendors to
provide company and tool information with the help of an online survey. More than 50% of
invited vendors participated, making it the largest cross-platform tool survey to date. Survey
results have been enriched with expert interviews and secondary research.
Figure 14: Benchmarking methodology
User awareness and performance rating is based on a global app developer and publisher
online survey. The online survey received over 1.000 responses.
3 USP: Unique Selling Proposition
Source: Global Cross Platform Tool Benchmarking 2013© research2guidance | 2013
The benchmarking matches the tool vendors viewwith the reality of the users
Vendor survey
User survey
Benchmarking
• 45 tools vendors have participated
• Vendors filled out questionaires about their solution
• 1,021 app developers have participated
• Developers answered surveyabout their experience withcross platform tools
• Matching vendor and tool user perspectives
• Tool comparison
1
2
3
Benchmarking process
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CP-Tool Profile: Xamarin (by Xamarin)
Tool vendor offerings and user ratings are matched in the benchmarking, indicating gaps
between vendors and user perception of today’s leading cross-platform app development
tools.
Cross-platform tool users are located in regions around the world. Participants come mainly
from the US (15%), Canada (11%), India (11%), Germany (10%) and UK (6%).
Figure 15: Geographical overview of cross-platform tool users
Tool user survey participants range from individual app developers to IT managers of multi-
national corporations.
Source: Global Cross Platform Tool Benchmarking 2013© research2guidance | 2013
Geographical distribution of participating developers
Tool users are spread around the globe
©research2guidance | October 2013
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CP-Tool Profile: Xamarin (by Xamarin)
Figure 16: Background of cross-platform tool users
Source: Global Cross Platform Tool Benchmarking 2013© research2guidance | 2013
The cross-platform rating audience ranges from individual developers to IT managers of multi-national corporations
User survey participants by company size
Just me33%
Small business
41%
Medium business
13%
Enterprise13%
n=888
User survey participants by position in thecompany
Professional developer
58%
Business administrator
/ CXO / Management
21%
IT / telecom administrator
5%
Graphic designer
2%
Student / Learning
developer2%
Other12%
©research2guidance | October 2013
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CP-Tool Profile: Xamarin (by Xamarin)
6.2. ABOUT THE AUTHORS
The authors of this report have been following the app market and CP Tools for many years.
The first report on multi-platform app publishing tools was published in 2010. Since then,
two other reports which cover the market for CP Tools have been published.
OUR ANALYST TEAM
Ralf-Gordon Jahns
Ralf is the research director of
research2guidance. He has worked for
more than 19 years in the telecom and
media industry. Prior to
research2guidance he worked as a
partner for Capgemini Telecom Media &
Networks. Ralf is a frequent keynote
speaker on mobile industry events,
publisher of a multitude of mobile
market reports and executive
consultant of more than 30 clients in
the telecom and media industry.
Joachim Thiele-Schlesier
Joachim is a research analyst at
research2guidance. He is monitoring the
CP Tool market since 2011 and has been
responsible for publishing 3 reports on
this topic. Joachim also engaged with
projects on converging
telecommunication networks and
regulatory issues. He holds a degree in
economics and specializes on
infrastructure and network economics.
Prior to research2guidance he worked for
Markedskraft ASA as analyst and for the
Fraunhofer Institute for Open
Communication Systems and Center for
Network Industries.
©research2guidance | October 2013
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CP-Tool Profile: Xamarin (by Xamarin)
6.3. LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
Table 1: Device class optimization of Xamarin ........................................................................... 8
Table 2: Xamarin - platform support .......................................................................................... 8
Table 3: Accessible device hardware features and pre-installed applications .......................... 9
Table 4: Integration of APIs ...................................................................................................... 10
Table 5: Target industries by Xamarin...................................................................................... 11
Table 6: Xamarin – targeted company sizes and user types .................................................... 12
Table 7: Complexity of Xamarin in terms of time-to-learn and average app development time
(vendor´s view) ......................................................................................................................... 13
Table 8: Xamarin - available support channels ........................................................................ 13
Figure 1: Xamarin users by company size and position ........................................................... 14
Figure 2: Xamarin users - total number of published apps and share of Xamarin apps .......... 15
Figure 3: Xamarin users - industry focus when using Xamarin ................................................ 16
Figure 4: Xamarin users´ app category focus when using Xamarin ......................................... 17
Figure 5: Complexity of Xamarin in terms of time-to-learn and average app development
time (users view); Complexity rating ....................................................................................... 18
Figure 6: Realized time-savings in app development with Xamarin ........................................ 19
Figure 7: Targeted platforms by Xamarin users; satisfaction with platform support ............. 20
Figure 8: Importance, usage and satisfaction with Xamarin cloud API services ...................... 21
Figure 9: Importance, usage and satisfaction with Xamarin accessible device hardware
features .................................................................................................................................... 22
Figure 10: Importance, usage and satisfaction with Xamarin accessible pre-installed
applications .............................................................................................................................. 23
Figure 11: Usage of Xamarin support channels and support service satisfaction ................... 24
Figure 12: Xamarin app quality rating ...................................................................................... 25
Figure 13: Xamarin - cost-performance ratio (user rating) ...................................................... 26
Figure 14: Benchmarking methodology ................................................................................... 28
Figure 15: Geographical overview of cross-platform tool users .............................................. 29
Figure 16: Background of cross-platform tool users ................................................................ 30