Distributing Apps in a Corporate Environment

[blAAAm]

Hi All,

Our Company is going to be opening up our Smart Phone options to Android and IOS Devices. One thing that we are having some trouble with is figuring out how to get people paid apps with out them having to submit an expense report that cost 10x the price of the app itself.
On IOS you can gift an app or you can buy apps in bulk from the business market but in Android you dont have these options.
The only way that I have been able to find is to give people amazon gift cards and have them get the apps from the Amazon Market Place but this is not very effective.
I was hoping some folks ma have some suggestions. Thanks in Advance.

 

[Unforgiven]

I would go into the Play store and find the apps you want. There is a link there to contact the dev. Deal with them directly and see if there is a way to accomplish what you want. They may be able to work out a way for you to provide apk's (install packages) to your employees that could then be linked to the play market for updates. In my experience most devs are very supportive of their end users so you may have good luck.

 

[MikaelPe]

We have a similar problem where we are looking for a solution. Our company is a manufacturer of accessory products for Android phones. There is one paid application ($4.99 cost) that we want to include/bundle with our hardware. We did contact the developer who is very friendly and co-operative but so far we have not found a technical solution where we could purchase let's say 50.000 of the application and provide the consumer buying our accessory with a unique code or some type of verification that would allow them to download the app at no cost to them (as it's suppose to be included in the "bundle" with the hardware).

The option of "sideloading" and providing a link via email is not a real option either as this would eliminate the verification/app protection process currently in place for the Developer to avoid that there's an unprotected app "out there" that would surely be posted on file sharing/black market type sites immediately.

For reference our "hardware" products will mostly be shipped from Amazon or purchased by the consumer in a Telecom store type Sprint, Verizon dealer. We would like to have a sticker/image on the box saying "Android app XX" included, value $4.99" or something similar.

QUESTION: Is there any technical option of solving this and including an Android app together with a piece of "hardware" and still protect the Developer with regards to license verification etc.? We are hoping there's a solution out there as many Corporate applications are "sideloaded", yet they must have some protection in place...