
Google Play comes to Google Apps: Enterprises can distribute apps internally - Quekster
http://thenextweb.com/google/2012/12/04/google-play-comes-to-google-apps-letting-enterprise-customers-distribute-apps-internally/
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mtkd
This is huge for business uptake and could, in a few months, start leading
enterprises to specify Android only.

Will open up a lot more opportunities for mobile business app startups too.

Mobile in enterprise is often seen as lagging behind consumer use - but senior
execs in my experience are already a lot further ahead on mobile use for
stats/monitoring than many probably appreciate - getting broader uptake across
an enterprise usually stalls at deployment and user support.

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halostatue
In your first sentence, there are two statements. The first is true. I see
this as an important step that Google had missed, yet Apple had working (for
some value of working) from day one.

The second is unlikely to be true for a very long time, if ever, and is merely
wishful thinking. It would equally be wishful thinking if someone thought that
enterprises would specify iOS only or SailFish only.

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esonderegger
This is perfect timing for a video streaming solution I've been working on.

I'm trying to build a video capture program and a google tv app that talk to
each other so I can stream video around our LAN. The video capture box would
probably be in the $1000 range. Then each tv that wants to see that stream
would only need a $100 Vizio Google TV box and the private android app. Now
that I know I can build an app that won't be in the public Play store, but
will be accessible easily to accounts on our domain, I can make that app much
more specific.

I could see this being really popular with companies who use a lot of TVs for
signage. The first thing that comes to mind for me is all the TVs in airports
showing departure and arrival information.

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habosa
This is great. So much better than distributing APKs over email or something
of that nature. The ability to push secure updates to internal apps through
Google's network is gamechanging.

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ConstantineXVI
Less relevant (unless you're on the free Google Apps plan, or want to do
private apps outside a domain) now that this is available, but using
Dropbox/GDrive for private app distribution is far less painful than email.

(I imagine it wouldn't be too difficult to build a pseudo-Market over the
GDrive APIs for such uses. Might look into that at some point.)

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andyjohnson0
This is going to be incredibly useful for me.

I'm not familiar with the Apple or Windows Phone platforms. Do they have
anything similar?

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luke_s
Apple has a B2B program where you can make an app available only to phones
registered to a particular organisation. It has not been rolled out worldwide,
like the google program appears to be: <http://www.apple.com/business/vpp/>

On the downside of googles program, it appears to rely on a company using
google apps (basically the corporate version of Gmail, which runs under your
own domain). I understand not many companies use this - its definitely not as
popular as say - exchange.

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FigBug
Slight correction: The enterprise developer program is for distributing apps
within an organization: <https://developer.apple.com/programs/ios/enterprise/>

The B2B program is more for bulk purchase of custom apps.

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sp332
Then why on earth did they name it Play?

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c0nsumer
Pushing the play button to make it go, perhaps? As in, using the apps is so
easy you just "press Play"?

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MatthewPhillips
One has to wonder what the problem was with Market.

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ConstantineXVI
I took it as a way of making Google's involvement more clear; it's not
immediately obvious "Android Market" is Google-related, where "Google Play
Store" is.

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yohui
That seems reasonable. But it explains "Google" more than "Play". (Why not
"Google Market"?)

I assume Google decided on "Play" over "Market" for other reasons.

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MatthewPhillips
I've been thinking more about this, and it's strange that Microsoft _also_
rebranded their Windows Phone Marketplace to Windows Phone Store. Makes me
wonder if focus groups don't like the word "market" for some reason. It's not
commonly used in Americanized English, so I wouldn't be surprised if many
people are confused by what Market is, in terms of a phone application.

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nwatson
Other companies have a more comprehensive cross-platform solution already.
E.g., [http://www.zenprise.com/solutions/mobile-application-
managem...](http://www.zenprise.com/solutions/mobile-application-management)
\-- not only does this let you deploy apps selectively to iOS and Android
devices belonging to specific users/groups in your enterprise, it also tracks
all data/files these apps touch on the phone and makes sure that data is
killed whenever the apps are removed or the phone is lost/stolen. Also does
the same for downloaded email local-store or downloaded email attachments.

If an enterprise is Android-only, the Google solution is OK. If you're really
doing a corporate deployment, something like Zenprise is a better way to go.

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hosay123
At what point do people start believing that Google has a strong interest in
carving out its own proprietary ecosystem, all their openness "plays" always
lead to the same thing: some rhetorical platform used only to advance their
private agenda. Chrome and Android will soon be Internet Explorer and Windows
of the 21st century.

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patrickaljord
I would love to be able to git clone IE like I can right now with AOSP and
Chrome.

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hosay123
It's great, and I absolutely love how I can independently host Google Play and
Chrome Store.. oh wait a second.

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nl
I'm not sure your sarcasm makes sense.

You can't host either Google Play or Chrome Store, but you can write your own
and install apps from them.

There are many other Android appstores around - most phone vendors and carries
have one, many large enterprises have their own and there are a number of 3rd
party ones.

I don't think there are any other Chrome stores but I suspect that has more to
do with the lack of use Chrome apps have.

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Evbn
You can't install a certificate to enable your Chrome to one-click install a
user.js from apple.com or Mozilla.org, but you can install extensions from
Google.com. That is not an open web.

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salmanapk
I won't suggest any non-technical person to use the "open web" you guys want.

