Question

We are a software development company willing to develop iPhone/iPad apps for one of our clients.

We understand that for being able to deploy our application at our client, they have to register in Apple’s iOS Developer Enterprise Program and add us in the development team.

It is unclear if we need to buy a MonoTouch license for Enterprise Distribution or a simple Professional license would allow us to sign and deploy the application on a large number of devices as long as the client is already registered in Apple’s Enterprise Program.

Although the question is targeted at MonoTouch’s licensing options, any practical advice on how to handle the common scenario described in the first phrase would also be of great help.

Thanks.

Answer 1

There are two differences between the Professional and Enterprise licences for MonoTouch:

• The professional license requires you to assign the license to a named developer. This means that you cannot share the license between employees in your organization. Enterprise licenses do not have this restriction.
• In addition, the Enterprise license allows you to deploy applications outside the App Store. This is useful for applications deployed internally in an organization.

Apart from that the licenses are identical as far as I know. Both allow you to develop full iOS applications with no restrictions.

Depending on your need, you may want to go for the 5-pack of enterprise licenses. This gives you five licenses for the price of four, and lets all your employees share them. In many cases I think this is the best option.