" Oracle and Google are currently in a $1 billion wrestling match over Google’s use of Java in Android.
But Java is not the only way to build native apps on Android. In fact, it’s not even the best way: we have been offering C# to Android developers as a high-performance, low-battery consuming alternative to Java. Our platform, Mono, is an open source implementation of the .NET framework that allows developers to write their code using C# while running on top of the Java-powered operating system, and then share that same code with iOS and Windows Phone.
Unlike Sun with Java, Microsoft submitted C# and the .NET VM for standardization to ECMA and saw those standards graduated all the way to ISO strong patent commitments. The .NET framework is also covered by Microsoft’s legally binding community promise.
Last July when Xamarin was getting started, we got our team together in Boston to plan the evolution of Mono on iOS and Android. After a day of kayaking in the Charles River, we sat down to dinner and turned our attention to how we could improve the performance and battery life of applications on Android, and make our own Mono for Android even better.... " -- continued: http://goo.gl/2crcM
