Businesses use several factors to assess the success of a project life cycle – cost, time to market, adoption rates, and more. But when a technology reduces development time from 2 to 3 man-years to just 3 months, it’s difficult not to take notice.
SEP needed to adapt a $3.5 million dollar Windows desktop application to run on a Mac. Starting over with a cross-platform language wasn’t feasible. When SEP found Xamarin and learned what it could do, the game changed.
“Our client needed to capitalize on existing assets,” said Adam Scroggin, Software Engineering Manager, SEP. “We looked at several options but most were technologically and economically prohibitive. Xamarin enabled us to adapt the client’s application for a new operating system while giving the client a competitive advantage and reducing development costs.”
Xamarin enables developers to write apps entirely in C#. The code can then be shared on iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac while still delivering outstanding performance. With Xamarin, .NET libraries are truly reusable, eliminating rework, and developers can still easily incorporate platform-specific libraries and frameworks as needed.
Another Xamarin advantage is that it uses UI components native to each platform, which ensures an optimal user experience. A common alternative for other products is to synchronize HTML5 elements for iOS, Android, and others. But this option is time-consuming and rarely meets users’ performance expectations. Each platform typically requires additional minor modifications. Xamarin removes those steps and provides an unbeatable native UI experience.
“The client had already invested millions of dollars into the project,” said Jon Fuller, Lead Software Engineer, SEP. “We could have rewritten all the code again, but the cost would have been millions of dollars more. We brought Xamarin to the table. With its cutting-edge technology, we were able to shorten the development life cycle dramatically.”
Following the success of the project, SEP is putting together additional client proposals that would capitalize on Xamarin. “With the growth of the mobile market, Xamarin enables SEP to continue building best-in-class, cross-platform solutions while reducing development costs,” said Scroggin.
SEP plans to continue leveraging the technology to create innovative client solutions.
