Having two accounts on a device is a real hassle. Until it makes sense for the company to get a Dunn & Broadstreet number and go enterprise, the gifting of apps is the easiest way to go.

If the app allows them to perform a critical job function, how is even $500 a year "expensive" when you are paying a salary, benefits, insurance. I don't mean to trivialize any IT expense, but would anyone want to work with a company that's so cheap, they won't pay for tools that make sense? Especially tools that let it's employees get work done 24/7 wherever they have a cell signal.

We're not talking about $25k which is a ballpark true costs of a 10 person laptop deployment covering one year and light software. If you look at this from a productivity / ROI standpoint - iOS deployments are some of the cheapest on the planet as well as the easiest to justify. Just buy apps that are obvious winners in the next 6 to 18 months and assume your employees will stick around.

That being said, most deployments I have seen end up layering a work Apple ID for work purchases and a personal Apple ID for personal purchases. At some point, people will be more comfortable expensing iOS app purchases like they expense hotel rooms and instead of worrying about losing all the purchases, they will learn that losing only a fraction of the apps when an employee leaves or changes roles isn't as expensive in practice as it seems when you start upon a project where all apps are purchased through Apple's app store ecosystem.

Having two accounts on a device is a real hassle. Until it makes sense for the company to get a Dunn & Broadstreet number and go enterprise, the gifting of apps is the easiest way to go.

If the app allows them to perform a critical job function, how is even $500 a year "expensive" when you are paying a salary, benefits, insurance. I don't mean to trivialize any IT expense, but would anyone want to work with a company that's so cheap, they won't pay for tools that make sense? Especially tools that let it's employees get work done 24/7 wherever they have a cell signal.

We're not talking about $25k which is a ballpark true costs of a 10 person laptop deployment covering one year and light software. If you look at this from a productivity / ROI standpoint - iOS deployments are some of the cheapest on the planet as well as the easiest to justify. Just buy apps that are obvious winners in the next 6 to 18 months and assume your employees will stick around.

That being said, most deployments I have seen end up layering a work Apple ID for work purchases and a personal Apple ID for personal purchases. At some point, people will be more comfortable expensing iOS app purchases like they expense hotel rooms and instead of worrying about losing all the purchases, they will learn that losing only a fraction of the apps when an employee leaves or changes roles isn't as expensive in practice as it seems when you start upon a project where all apps are purchased through Apple's app store ecosystem.

There is Apple Business Manager and VPP as well, but it's not clear that the benefit in flexibility outweighs signing up for MDM and VPP and just expensing apps, but if you want to start for free with a very well supported MDM that is targeted for small organizations that don't necessarily have IT staff, the best for a few years going is:

• Jamf Now - https://www.jamf.com/products/jamf-now/
• Apple Business Manager - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208817

I would go with JAMF Now until the cost outweighs the benefit and then stop paying for that the next month you don't feel you benefit from it or go back to the 3 free devices to manage. I wouldn't start down VPP / Business until you've spent $1000 and have 10 devices to manage for the average team, but you situation and funding might tilt the balance higher or lower based on how much you value the time of the people that will manage / set up / learn how this all works.

Having two accounts on a device is a real hassle. Until it makes sense for the company to get a Dunn & Broadstreet number and go enterprise, the gifting of apps is the easiest way to go.

If the app allows them to perform a critical job function, how is even $500 a year "expensive" when you are paying a salary, benefits, insurance. I don't mean to trivialize any IT expense, but would anyone want to work with a company that's so cheap, they won't pay for tools that make sense? Especially tools that let it's employees get work done 24/7 wherever they have a cell signal.

We're not talking about $25k which is a ballpark true costs of a 10 person laptop deployment covering one year and light software. If you look at this from a productivity / ROI standpoint - iOS deployments are some of the cheapest on the planet as well as the easiest to justify. Just buy apps that are obvious winners in the next 6 to 18 months and assume your employees will stick around.

Having two accounts on a device is a real hassle. Until it makes sense for the company to get a Dunn & Broadstreet number and go enterprise, the gifting of apps is the easiest way to go.

If the app allows them to perform a critical job function, how is even $500 a year "expensive" when you are paying a salary, benefits, insurance. I don't mean to trivialize any IT expense, but would anyone want to work with a company that's so cheap, they won't pay for tools that make sense? Especially tools that let it's employees get work done 24/7 wherever they have a cell signal.

We're not talking about $25k which is a ballpark true costs of a 10 person laptop deployment covering one year and light software. If you look at this from a productivity / ROI standpoint - iOS deployments are some of the cheapest on the planet as well as the easiest to justify. Just buy apps that are obvious winners in the next 6 to 18 months and assume your employees will stick around.

That being said, most deployments I have seen end up layering a work Apple ID for work purchases and a personal Apple ID for personal purchases. At some point, people will be more comfortable expensing iOS app purchases like they expense hotel rooms and instead of worrying about losing all the purchases, they will learn that losing only a fraction of the apps when an employee leaves or changes roles isn't as expensive in practice as it seems when you start upon a project where all apps are purchased through Apple's app store ecosystem.