I have a friend who has managed to successfully lobby his employer to switch the company-issued "feature phones" to iPhones. He has been peppering me with questions on how to set these phones up with employees' and the employer's Apple IDs.

(The company has between one and two dozen employees, so they're definitely not at the level that Apple considers "Enterprise". Plus they're in Canada, so the new business app store isn't available to them yet.)

Ideally the employees would be allowed to install their own non-business-related apps, music, videos, etc. In addition, a number of business-related apps need to be installed, some of which may be expensive.

Here's what I'm going to suggest to them:

Each employee should be assigned their own company Apple ID using their company email address and a password that will be known only to the IT guy. The billing information will be set up to bill to a company credit card.

Company apps would be installed (and updated) using this Apple ID and password (this would probably happen only infrequently). Personal apps would be installed and updated with the person's personal Apple ID.

That way if and when an employee leaves the company, the expensive business apps can stay with the company/device, and the employee's extensive collection of Lady Gaga remixes can stay with their iTunes account and any subsequent devices they purchase.

The only workable alternative would be to purchase all company apps with the same Apple ID. Unfortunately this runs afoul of the (non-personal-use) App Store T&Cs.

Any advice or alternatives I've overlooked would be greatly appreciated.