Novell Releases First Solution to Build iPhone Applications Using C# and Microsoft .NET Languages

Novell began shipping MonoTouch today. MonoTouch is a proprietary product that costs US$399 for a one-year subscription per developer for the personal edition; an enterprise edition is available for $999 per developer per year.


Below is the press release


Novell today announced the availability of MonoTouch 1.0, the industry's first solution for developing applications for the iPhone* and iPod* Touch using the Microsoft* .NET framework, including C# and other .NET programming languages. Until now, developers primarily built iPhone applications using C and Objective-C, putting iPhone development beyond the reach of most .NET developers. With MonoTouch, the creativity of millions of .NET developers worldwide can be unleashed to build a vast array of iPhone applications.

The incredible popularity of the iPhone and iPod Touch has created a huge market for iPhone applications. According to Scott Ellison, vice president of Mobile and Wireless at IDC, in the first year the Apple Apps Store has more than 50,000 available applications, and well over 1 billion downloads with an average of more than 140 new applications launched every day1. However, developers previously used the more complex C and Objective-C programming languages to design iPhone applications.

Engineered by the Mono® Project, an open source initiative sponsored by Novell, MonoTouch simplifies iPhone development by allowing developers to utilize code and libraries written for the .NET development framework and programming languages such as C#. Individual .NET developers and independent software vendors (ISVs) can now sell their products into a massive new market, while corporate developers and IT organizations can deploy their applications in a new mobile computing environment.
"The iPhone has experienced tremendous adoption in both consumer and business markets," said Al Hilwa, program director, Application Development Software at IDC. "Given that applications are a key reason for the iPhone's success, a solution that allows .NET developers to use existing skills to build iPhone applications is an exciting and consequential milestone in the evolution of mobile platforms."

The iPhone developer program license restricts developers from distributing scripting engines or Just-In-Time (JIT) compilers, which are required by managed runtimes such as .NET for code execution. As a result, the world of iPhone applications had been previously closed to .NET and Mono developers. Developers can now use MonoTouch while fully complying with these license terms because MonoTouch delivers only native code.
"Developing our award-winning mobile forms solution on multiple platforms before MonoTouch from Novell was time-consuming due to the diverse technology platforms," said Simon Guindon, mobile solution developer at TrueContext. "With MonoTouch, we can now optimize development for the future and enrich the Pronto Forms product offering at a faster pace."

MonoTouch from Novell is a software development kit that contains a suite of compilers, libraries and tools for integrating with Apple's iPhone SDK. Microsoft .NET base class libraries are included, along with managed libraries for taking advantage of native iPhone APIs. Also included is a cross-compiler that can be used for turning .NET executable files and libraries directly into native applications for distribution on the Apple Apps* Store or for deployment to enterprise iPhone users. In addition, Xcode integration enables application developers to test on the device or in Apple's iPhone Simulator and ship applications to the Apple Apps Store for distribution.

"The vast majority of Windows-centric developers, ISVs and IT organizations have chosen the C# language and .NET for development," said Miguel de Icaza, Mono project founder and Developer Platform vice president at Novell. "As such we have seen tremendous demand for tools to build .NET-based iPhone applications. We developed MonoTouch in response to this demand, giving both individual developers and businesses a solution that breaks down the barriers to iPhone application development."

MonoTouch Pricing and Availability
MonoTouch Personal and Enterprise Editions are available now through http://shop.novell.com. MonoTouch Enterprise Edition is available for US $999 per developer for a one-year subscription, which includes maintenance and updates. A five-developer Enterprise license supports five concurrent developers and is available for US $3,999 per year. For individuals only building applications for the Apple Apps Store, MonoTouch Personal Edition is available for $399 per developer for a one-year subscription. For more information about MonoTouch visit www.novell.com/products/monotouch. To learn more about the Mono Project visit http://www.mono-project.com.