The Merge Purge - Microsoft Retires Visual Studio for Mac - Is JetBrains Rider on Microsfot's Radar?

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Visual Studio for Mac IDE

In a surprising move, Microsoft has decided to retire Visual Studio for Mac, its macOS counterpart to Visual Studio. In a blog post, Anthony Cangialosi - The Group Product Manger of DevDiv announced the news:

 

Today we are announcing the retirement of the Visual Studio for Mac IDE. Visual Studio for Mac 17.6 will continue to be supported for another 12 months, until August 31st, 2024, with servicing updates for security issues and updated platforms from Apple. While the decision has been made to retire Visual Studio for Mac, we remain committed to our developers on Mac with alternatives like the recently announced C# Dev Kit for VS Code and other extensions that will allow you to take advantage of our ongoing investments in .NET development on a Mac.

 

This is a surprise decision considering Microsoft overhauled the IDE while announcing Visual Studio 2022. Microsoft touted the overhaul back then stating:

Our goal with Visual Studio 2022 for Mac is to make a modern .NET IDE tailored for the Mac that delivers the productive experience you’ve come to love in Visual Studio. We’re working to move Visual Studio for Mac to native macOS UI, which means it will come with better performance and reliability. It also means that Visual Studio for Mac can take full advantage of all the built-in macOS accessibility features. We’re updating the menus and terminology across the IDE to make Visual Studio more consistent between Mac and Windows. The new Git experience from Visual Studio will also be coming to Visual Studio for Mac, beginning with the introduction of the Git Changes tool window.

 

Analysis

Visual Studio for Mac was launched in 2016 when Microsoft acquired Xamarin - the creator of Mono, Xamarin.Android and Xamarin.iOS. The initial version was simply a rebranding of Xamarin Studio.

These were cross-platform implementations of the .Net CLR (Common Language Runtime). Microsoft later acquired the company in February 2016. In Build 2016, Microsoft open-sourced the Xamarin libraries. 

During Microsoft BUILD 2020, Microsoft announced the transformation of Xamarin.Forms into .NET 6 as .NET MAUI - A Multi-platofrm App UI. 

Microsoft has affirmed its commitment to the .NET community on Mac however,  discontinuing the flagship IDE may not go well with some. Microsoft recommends Visual Studio Code with C# Dev Kit as the alternate to Visual Studio for Mac. The news may give the vibes of what happened to Silverlight. Would MAUI face the similar fate? Only time will tell, however, one thing is certain: Microsoft's recent development frameworks have been more of a miss than a hit. 

Rider - a competing cross-platform IDE for .NET Development from JetBrains may be the ultimate beneficiary of this news. I am wondering whether JetBrains is on Microsoft's radar for a potential acquisition. Take it with a grain of salt but considering all the .NET tools JetBrains develop alongside the best Java IDE (IntelliJ IDEA), one may wonder if Microsoft becomes the home for JetBrains. Fingers crossed.

 

Sources

Visual Studio for Mac Retirement Announcement

Visual Studio 2022 

MAUI

Xamarin Wikipedia

Microsoft Silverlight

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