Apple Spin-Off Hosts Enterprise App Stores 64
An anonymous reader writes "Last year Apple quietly authorized private-label app stores with its OTA (over-the-air) protocol, and now an Apple spin-off is offering the first hosting service to uses OTA to create alternative app stores for iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad. One of the first is Cisco's App Fridge (for cool networking apps), but a dozen other Fortune 500 companies have also signed up. And this fall, Apperian promises to add Android apps to its service, enabling one-stop-shopping for private-label apps store hosted in the clouds. So far these store are for employees only, but by 2012 Apperian claims it will be offering alternative app stores for the rest of us."
My Eyes! (Score:1)
Jesus, that hurts.
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That was my first reaction, too. It's like it was copy & pasted out of a PDF. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a press-release originally.
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Looks fine on FF5 Windows. Either they fixed it or it's some kind of Browser specific problem.
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Looks fine on Safari 5 on Mac OS X.
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However, it does NOT look fine on IE5 for Windows.
What does?
about:blank?
Can't read it (Score:1)
Quick, dig out that bomb shelter! (Score:2)
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Enterprise customers have had the ability to run their own app store for over a year.
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* They might be worse, but for the sake of discussion, my point remains.
Device lead (Score:2)
And how is that an advantage over every other type of device?
Because you get to use Apple devices instead of every other device.
Especially important with the iPad, which is very robust and has excellent battery life.
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They can do anything the enterprise allows, within the limits iOS imposes on apps (so full filesystem access isn't allowed - you're sandboxed unless you run your app jailbroken).
But that "priviledge" comes at the cost of an enterprise development fee
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Enterprise apps, not regular consumer apps (Score:3)
Apple allows other app stores? The world really will end in October!
These are enterprise apps for internal use by an organization. Enterprise apps have always been handled differently than the regular apps for consumers on the Apple App Store.
My understanding is that the organization maintains a list of device IDs allowed to use the app. They submit the list to Apple, Apple signs it, and returns the signed list as a provisioning file. The enterprise then distributes the app and the provisioning file to users, there is even a wireless method that the enterprise can set up
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You don't need a list of device IDs for enterprise distribution. An enterprise-level development account, with the appropriate distribution provisioning, is sufficient.
Using OTA enterprise distribution, I set up something similar for the place I work. An added benefit is that our in-house apps automatically check for updates when they're launched and prompt to update themselves if necessary. As far as I can tell, this "private-label app store" thing is pure media hype. As others have said, this is si
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That is per year. For $99 a year you can buy devices that don't require rent be paid to use your own apps on them.
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Yeah, that whopping $99 dollars that might pay for half of a single phone! Such amazing savings!
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Plenty of crappy tablets that a business could use for inventory are available at that price.
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Wow, what a deal! You can use your savings to buy a shitty tablet that will break in a couple of months! I can't understand why businesses aren't jumping out of their seats over such a grand idea!
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That's $99 for the ordinary developer program, which gets you App Store apps as well as Ad-Hoc apps, limited to distribution to a few devices picked from a list that may only contain 100 devices per year. The Enterprise program, which gets you arbitrary distribution apps that you're only supposed to use inside your company, requires $299 and a DUNS number (some sort of business identifier) to keep the commoners out. (There used to be a prerequisite of hundreds of employees which was recently removed, so the
Nothing new, enterprises had self distribution (Score:2)
Basically, Apple tried to sell iPhones and iPads as enterprise devices. IT departments looked at them and laughed, pointing out that they need to be able to deploy custom in-house apps to them. Apple for once listened to a customer (so maybe the world really is ending) and agreed to allow in-house app stores for customer enterprise apps.
No. This is nothing new. Enterprise apps have always been distributed internally. If not from day 1 then from *very* soon afterwards. I recall having to select regular or enterprise accounts when signing up with Apple in 2008.
What may have been added in recent history, a year or so ago (?), is the wireless distribution option.
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Basically, Apple tried to sell iPhones and iPads as enterprise devices. IT departments looked at them and laughed, pointing out that they need to be able to deploy custom in-house apps to them.
Dude stop smoking crack OK? Crack Kills your brain.
Medical organizations are mobilizing on the iPad. This is their dream device. A doc can walk around with it, take notes, show patients X-Rays, write prescriptions on it, write orders on it and all in a very nicely organized standardized way. And you know that little connector on the bottom of it? Well think dongle. Think credential holder. Think all kinds of things and when the new one with an HD display is ready you can bet that radiologists with be
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The device is fine. The speed at which they are being adopted is blinding. If you have ever worked in health care then you know this already.
Those windows apps are going to fall by the wayside faster then you can imagine. The iPad been on the market less then a year and it is taking the computing world by storm. The iPad 2 will further fuel this technology and drive it further and further into every aspect of every business. I predict that within one year that you will see your doctor charting you on o
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Next thing you know, they will stop killing babies.
For some, this is actually wecomed news (Score:1)
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What is the point of an i$thing if you can't install apps on it?
Just using it as jewelery?
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This is no different than locking down a laptop so that unauthorized software cannot be loaded on the laptop unless it comes from a company-run and provided website/service. I wouldn't want t
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I'm so glad I chose a profession where I'm treated like a professional.
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a "pofessional" is just someone who does something as his "profession". Does not mean he is actually good at it. I am a professional scientist. Does not mean I am good at it. :)
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They're better than Android or WP7 in their current incarnations. At least you can specify what people can and can't do with the device in an enterprise environment and actually provision it with a standardized profile. The only better smartphone platform is Blackberry + BES; and we all know how great their smartphones are lately.
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The company sure does have that right. The question is if the company is going to do that then why would the users want the devices at all?
If I was a user at the company I would rather not have the company iPhone at all with those restrictions, since I would be carrying two devices.
Unless the device is jailbroken I fail to see what having a few games would hurt. This sounds more like control for its own sake than anything else.
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That's fine if your staff use the same applications all the time to do the same things. Accountants, bankers, insurance brokers etc. fit this profile nicely, as do secretaries and PAs using Word. These things don't require innovation or free thought. They are essentially administrative tasks.
Once you have an employee that does specialized or varied work the model becomes very broken - think software developers, scientists, engineers. The whole reason we had a PC revolution is that it put power in the hands
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What is the point of an i$thing if you can't install apps on it?
Really I know tons of people who have installed dozens and dozens of apps on their iDevices and have not jailbroken them. Have they done so through magic? Or are you conflating the ability to install apps that almost no average user cares about with not being able to install anything at all?
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No, he is stating that his enterprise would limit the apps the user could install. Which made me wonder why then those users would still desire such devices. If the device would be that crippled then you have to carry around two phones.
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Apple Spinoff? Hardly! (Score:1)
is that what this is? (Score:2)
http://www.apple.com/business/vpp/ [apple.com]
Thanks Apple! (Score:2)
Only corporation (not people) should be entrusted will the ability to run code.
Ultra-secure :-) (Score:1)