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back to article iTunes-for-corporates private app stores put firms at risk – survey

Businesses risk flunking software licence audits and overpaying for their apps by rolling out their own take on Apple’s iTunes app stores for business. That’s the warning from an IDC and Flexera Software poll that found 63 per cent of companies are planning their own enterprise app stores. Stores will be used by staff to …

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  1. Stuart Castle Silver badge

    Odd that a survey taken on behalf of a company that sells Licence Management systems designed to avoid this sort of thing should conclude that other companies (presumably not using a Licence Management system to monitor this) are possibly violating their licences and risk legal action.

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  2. dboy

    Shock horror, if people are allowed to take stock from a shop without a cash register, sometimes it won't be paid for. I don't know, what's the solution, ask for a till receipt before leaving with the stock perhaps?

    Stupid article.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      It's Fear, Fear for breakfast

      It's not only stupid, it's wrong in so many ways that I'm struggling to come to grips with how it was published at all. Allow me:-

      Enterprise app stores are for _your_ apps. The ones you want to deploy without going through the apple app store. Now by definition you won't be violating the licences on your own software.

      If you include a 3rd party IPA (app) in your store then yes, you need to make sure you are licenced for the number of users but guess what ? That applies to windows desktops now. There is no significant difference.

      If your users want to use apps from the Apple app store, they need either individual accounts or you need a Volume Purchasing Plan. Now if you get a VPP you buy a number of copies and then Apple either gives you tokens for you to distribute to users, or licence keys that you can deploy (and redeploy) via MDM.

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  3. Wize

    We have a corporate app store.

    Anything that we have a company licence for (eg MS Office can be installed on any PC and our existing licence covers it) is listed as free.

    Anything that requires a new licence (eg Adobe's PDF editor) carries a cost. Software carrying a cost then has to be justified by your manager (as his cost centre will have to shell out). Your software then gets pushed remotely when everything is signed off (and, most likely, an extra licence is purchased by some department).

    The guys running the app store can then log who has what software and what licence applies to which instance.

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    1. Bill the Sys Admin
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      Re: We have a corporate app store.

      Out of interest what kind of software you using to automate run this? Currently my guys in my team are looking to do the very same. Cheers.

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  4. QuietLeni

    Corporate Software Stores are great (if there is some control and approval).

    I have worked with Corporate Software Stores and they are really effective for allowing users to just install the stuff that they need, as long as there is a process for approval by someone who needs to pay for it.

    Also, it is not beyond the whit of man to include detection abilities for software that then also tracks the software installation to a license and therefore to make sure that everyone knows the license position BEFORE FAST/Microsoft/Adobe come knocking on the door.

    Furthermore, it is also possible to monitor software executions, so that when someone has got a premium product installed, you can then find out if they are using it (and whip it off if they are not)!

    Software Licensing (once you know how it has been paid for) is not that difficult to work with...

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  5. Gerhard Mack

    bad store design?

    Why should it matter how many times you download an app? Shouldn't the store be tracking that sort of thing and reusing the old license rather than granting a new one?

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    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Re: bad store design?

      It depends on how you setup your VPP. One way relies on tokens (the same ones devs use to give out freebies). These are tied to an apple-id so can't be reused.

      There's a 'licence' model as well. It's fairly new so you need to make sure your MDM supplier supports it.

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