This post is part of an ongoing series about features of App47’s mobile application management platform. Be sure to check back here on our blog over the coming weeks for more in-depth feature descriptions. For previous posts in the series, see: Customizing Your App Store; Self-Service Enrollment; App Store User Experience. And for a list of all of App47’s features, see our features page here.
App stores everywhere present a unique problem for businesses: they’re prominent sources of high-volume, low-cost purchases that can be difficult to keep track of. Even if an app is only $3, when an employee purchases that app for work and expenses it through normal methods, that $3 app could end up costing your company $12 when all is said and done.
Luckily, Apple has come up with a great solution for that problem: the Volume Purchase Program (VPP). Instead of having your employees purchase apps individually—which is problematic for reasons we just mentioned—the VPP allows you to purchase apps in volume all at once.
When you purchase an app through Apple’s VPP, one of the more common methods of distribution is an excel spreadsheet. That spreadsheet will contain all of your redemption codes, and after purchase, it’s up to the enterprise to track, redeem, and distribute those codes—a task that can turn difficult very fast, as you might imagine.
Here at App47, however, we offer VPP integration, allowing you to seamlessly integrate your VPP redemption codes into our platform. With App47, once you purchase an app in volume, you can load it into our system and let us do the legwork.
You don’t have to sort through any spreadsheets. When a user wants an app and a code is available, we’ll automatically use one of your codes to give them the application, and from there, we’ll mark the code as used so that it’s easy for your business to track. We’ll also reconcile with Apple: if anything is out of sync, we’ll fix it so that you don’t have to.
And with this VPP integration comes another great B2B feature: the ability for your business to build a mobile app and easily sell it in volume to another business. Your app will be hosted in iTunes’ app store—not publicly listed—and the ISV who built the app will be able to distribute it using VPP redemption code technology. The integration here is as seamless as it is for any other app purchase made using Apple’s VPP.
Whether you’re purchasing a public app in volume and distributing it to your users, or developing an app and selling it to other businesses, App47’s VPP integration creates a seamless solution that helps you work around the otherwise clumsy process of purchasing apps for the enterprise. All of this is yet another way that App47 makes enterprise MAM easy.
Would you like to learn more about App47’s VPP integration and how it can help your business distribute its apps? Reach out to us in the comments or through the contact page of our site—we’d love to hear from you!
