Apple needs to buy this company in 3, 2, 1... This is an ideal start to countering the concepts from Xamarin out of the .net camp and I would love to see them build up some form of XAML-like UI tech and tooling for x-plat UI dev so you could push the envelope on code-reuse. That would take a big dump of capital.
It would also make for a push in the market for this style of x-plat dev. If you can get to the major and minor platforms with one code-base and a single-stack dev team, oh what a smooth world it could be.
Windows 10 on all devices, written in Swift to a universal in visual studio. Wonder if I'd get to see a macbook running windows with a dev writing swift in VS.
Swift developers, building across platforms, can get their Apple-loving code into enterprises through the front door so Apple hardware can start coming through that way as well. Push the Apple brand via programming language in order to sell more hardware.
Is the longview really that a closed platform with a narrowly used language will increase the share of revenue from Mac sales?
Swift + walled garden are OK for selling phones, but for OSX to go beyond <10% of PC marketshare, they could use a language to erode resistance to Macs in the biggest markets for PCs. Microsoft puts Office on the Mac. Now, you can also have business systems built on Swift that can work on shiny Mac hardware AND crusty Windows boxes.
You buy this company because they love Swift and can help get a foothold on dev teams in the enterprise. No matter how many kids come up using Swift to make their phone apps, they are going to get pushed into building C# and java, and a bunch of other languages, using other hardware and tools, when they joins the ranks. You buy this company so you can control the direction of their efforts and use it to put more eggs in other baskets.
I don't think apple wants to push for cross platform development. Looking at the last decades I would sustain the opposite idea, they are trying to just build tools who can work only on their own ecosystem
It would also make for a push in the market for this style of x-plat dev. If you can get to the major and minor platforms with one code-base and a single-stack dev team, oh what a smooth world it could be.
Windows 10 on all devices, written in Swift to a universal in visual studio. Wonder if I'd get to see a macbook running windows with a dev writing swift in VS.