When I first heard about the Oracle & Xamarin tie up to support Oracle’s Mobile Cloud Service  – MCS(to use one of those xaaS acronyms we’re talking MBaaS – Mobile Backend aaS) I was little surprised and puzzled as for any Java/Javascript developer Oracle already their Mobile Application Framework which includes Apache Cordova and some Xamarin style cross compiling for native capabilities for Java.

It’s when you look at information such as that provided by DeveloperEconomics.com some sense becomes apparent. Oracle aren’t so much as abandoning MAF as trying to create conditions where all roads lead to MCS as the 2 most popular cross platform/x-compile mobile frameworks which represent 75% or more of the framework usage.  It is also likely (but I speculate here) that providing an Xamarin API and SDK probably isn’t that significant an investment given all of it has been built to support MAF already.

As late comers to the cloud service market, his sort of approach stands to increase Oracle’s potential to gain market share. The fact that they have got Xamarin onboard and the commitment (regardless of how easy it may have been to leverage existing work) Oracle’s decision to seek global domination in PaaS and SaaS markets. For this to pay off though Oracle need to shed the image of its only for the big boys with deep pockets.

Some helpful other resource:

• free MAF training and YouTube resources
• Xamarin development guides