Last year, McAfee said it had discovered 17,000 new malware suspects on the Google platform in just the second quarter of 2013. A problem that obviously concerns Samsung, the largest manufacturer of Android devices.

The bad reputation of the OS may indeed hurt the Korean manufacturer, especially in business where the issue of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and mobile environments security is a major concern of IT services. Samsung had therefore made an initial response there a few months unveiling Knox, its management and security solution. Advanced Encryption (AES-256), containerization or VPN, Knox offers almost complete protection of the terminal.

To further strengthen Android platform and Android developers, Xamarin and Samsung engineers have collaborated to create secure apps that can run on Samsung’s Knox security platform. As part of the partnership, Xamarin developers can build and get support for apps that run within the Knox app container with a minimum of fuss.

The application development tools company Xamarin makes it possible for developers to write mobile apps for iOS and Android using Microsoft’s C# language, which was originally designed for building .NET apps to run on Microsoft platforms. Xamarin’s platform shares on average 75 percent of the source code across the different operating systems.

“We are happy today to announce a new partnership with Samsung that enables you to create great native mobile applications with enhanced security capabilities provided by Samsung KNOX.  Our goal is to offer you the most options in creating great native applications and this partnership gives you more flexibility regarding app security,” Xamarin’s Rob Ross said in a blog post.

Samsung KNOX allows IT departments a comprehensive control, without compromising the privacy of employees and providing them consistent user experience on their personal devices. This end-to-end solution provides greater security for hardware and applications, introduced the new concept of the container, a separate security environment for running business applications and data storage. Applications and data are located in Knox container protected from malware and phishing attacks as well as hacking attempts alone device in case of loss or theft. The combination of Xamarin and Samsung Knox will enable developers to create high-performance native mobile applications while seamlessly deploying them within a secure hardened environment on mobile devices.

Samsung is hoping that Knox security features and Xamarin large pool of developers can convince more enterprises to adopt its higher end Android devices including Galaxy and Galaxy Note series devices. Xamarin apps are now certified to run in the container, and be compatible with the wrapping process.

“This is the beginning of a much larger relationship with Samsung,” said Mark Gaydos, senior vice president of marketing at Xamarin.

This is not the first time that Xamarin joins forces with a major provider of business software. Xamarin recently joined forces with SAP and Microsoft. The collaboration with SAP Mobile Platform aims make it easier for enterprise developers to build custom mobile apps for iOS, Android and Windows Phone devices from a single code base. The company announced an alliance with Microsoft last November in conjunction with the release of Visual Studio 2013.