Xamarin today announced interoperability with IBM MobileFirst Protect to enable enterprises to more securely deploy, manage and monitor business applications.

Xamarin helps organizations worldwide deliver highly adopted mobile experiences and is building upon its existing relationship with the IBM MobileFirst Platform. The combination of Xamarin and now IBM MobileFirst Protect, IBM’s Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) solution, enables developers to use the Xamarin platform to build iOS, Android and Windows apps using shared C# code. The interoperability also enables rapid user provisioning, access and continued app lifecycle management from intuitive cloud provisioned services.

With IBM MobileFirst Protect, enterprises can secure Xamarin applications, protect corporate data and enforce compliance policies across mobile operating systems without requiring further development. In combination, with the IBM MobileFirst SDK for Xamarin, developers gain a unified API to build mobile applications for secure access to backend services. Together, this offers organizations a significant advantage, increasing their development velocity and time-to-market, while also allowing them to efficiently deliver high quality, secure apps.

“Securing mobile app data and access to mobile apps, while still creating an experience that engages employees, is critical to mobile success in today’s world,” says Anar Taori, Director of Product Management at IBM Security. “Now, our customers using Xamarin can easily integrate with our comprehensive EMM capabilities to protect enterprises from a multitude of threats.”

Research firm IDC predicts that worldwide mobile shipments will reach 480 million by 2016, with 65 percent of devices used in BYOD workplace environments. In this landscape, companies must go mobile to stay relevant and must prepare for constantly evolving mobile threats. The implications for the enterprise are threefold: employees expect their work apps to have the same high-quality, high-performance user experiences as consumer apps, they are bringing more personal devices into the workplace, and those devices are interacting with exponentially more user and company data. As a result, enterprises must have scalable ways to build enterprise apps that employees will adopt, and have powerful ways to secure them.

“We are dedicated to helping developers bring secure, high-performance, high quality mobile apps to users worldwide,” said Nat Friedman, co-founder and CEO, Xamarin. “Our work with IBM combines Xamarin’s superior capabilities for building engaging apps with IBM MobileFirst Protect’s robust EMM capabilities to make enterprises more successful.”

Not only do EMM solutions reduce enterprise IT costs through simplified secure management of apps, data and devices, they also allow organizations to scale and provide a foundation for responding to future needs or vulnerabilities. According to Research and Markets, enterprises spent an estimated $11 Billion on mobile device and network security alone, with future growth expected to be at a 20 percent CAGR over the next six years. Together, Xamarin and IBM MobileFirst Protect prepare customers for enterprise mobility and help maximize their investments.

With Xamarin and IBM MobileFirst, clients have the flexibility to use a broad range of tools and services that enhance developer productivity and flexible deployment models on premises and in the IBM Cloud to accelerate digital transformation.

To learn more about how Xamarin is working with IBM, visit xamarin.com/ibm.