how to distribute a private app to a client as well as other clients who pay for it?

[thephotographer]

Hi,

I have a client who i am developing an application for. the application is for use internal inside his business only, it cannot be released to the public, the app is not to be used by anyone else. he would also like to licence the app to other similar businesses, it would work via a yearly subscription the other businesses pay to him, i take a cut, and their app continues to work each year, as well as receives updates of new content inside the app. how to distrubute the app to them is the question.

i was looking at the apple b2b system, and it looks like what i need, but im not in the US so i cant do that.

at the moment there will be maybe 5 ipads with this app, but potentially down the track there could be 100. when the times comes i guess i could just buy more developer accounts to get past the 100 device limit on each developer account.

i was thinking maybe i can just email them an ad hoc release with a prov profile and they install it via itunes, or do it all over the air using testflight, or something along those lines. i remember seeing tutorials on how to install apps direct from a website for testing purposes in the same way test flight do it. this method suits me and him as it also restricts the app to those devices that have been provisioned.

i guess another alternative is to use the app store and have the app recognise udid's and only work if its on a specific device, or something like that, but i can see apple not allowing this, im not sure i could be wrong.

or are there any other methods you can suggest?

[dfvdan]

Originally Posted by thephotographer

Hi,

i was looking at the apple b2b system, and it looks like what i need, but im not in the US so i cant do that.

Are you sure?

I seem to remember looking into that and you could be based internationally but had to acquire a Dun & Bradstreet number (for enrollment in the Enterprise Program). At least over here it is possible to get that from the local D&B representative.

I am assuming that the Enterprise program is the route to release B2B apps - correct?

[thephotographer]

Originally Posted by dfvdan

Are you sure?

I seem to remember looking into that and you could be based internationally but had to acquire a Dun & Bradstreet number (for enrollment in the Enterprise Program). At least over here it is possible to get that from the local D&B representative.

I am assuming that the Enterprise program is the route to release B2B apps - correct?

Yep, i am sure. everywhere i looked on the apple site it said you must be in the united states to enroll, and customers must also be in the united states to enroll. today i phones apple australia and they confirmed it is only for the united states. their suggestion was having my client enroll as an apple developer, have them give me access to their developer account, and then every year in the future they can renew the provisioning profiles themself. but that isnt going to work for them, they dont know nor do they want to know about provisioning profiles.

so it seems at this stage all i can do it email them a provisioning profile and application, and every year renew the provisioning profile and have them update it on their devices.

can someone answer this please?
if they have a copy of the compiled ipa, when they buy more ipads, can i just update the provisioning profile to include those new devices, and use the same old compiled build with the new provisioning profile? or do i have to recompile the build, and give them a new build with new prov profile?