PCVesti

Microsoft today announced that it is furthering its commitment to cross-platform development with an expanded open source program for its .NET platform and additional support for operating systems outside of Microsoft Windows.

“With billions of devices in the market today, developers need tools that target many different form factors and platforms,” said S. Somasegar, corporate vice president, Developer Division, Microsoft. “Through Visual Studio and .NET we are committed to delivering a comprehensive end-to-end solution for developers to build and manage applications across multiple devices and platforms.”

After releasing several .NET libraries earlier this year to the open source community, Microsoft confirmed it would open source the full server .NET stack, making it available to developers via Github. The company also is expanding .NET to run on third-party platforms such as Linux and OS X and is working with the open source Mono project to ensure these cross-platform operations are ready for enterprise-level applications.

As part of its Connect() event, Microsoft also unveiled its next generation Visual Studio 2015 developer suite with expanded cross-platform support. Additionally, the Redmond company announced the immediate release of Visual Studio Community 2013 and Visual Studio 2013 Update 4.

This open source initiative is part of a broader campaign to support platforms outside of Windows and Windows Phone. The company now offers Office on the iPhone and iPad and is continuing its support for Apple’s OS X platform. An updated version of Office for Mac is rumored for release sometime in 2015.