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windows-phone-8

How does the Windows Phone 8 company app store work?

The official windows phone website doesn't really describe in detail how exactly the company hub system works.

http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/business/custom-hub

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/jj206943(v=vs.105).aspx

I have a few questions, and I hope someone who has deployed an internal app store can answer them.

First of all, who provides the backend infrastructure? is the app store self hosted, or is it hosted my Microsoft? If it is self hosted, what kind of backend infrastructure is needed? If Microsoft handles the backend, what kind of fees are involved?

Do individual applications still have to be checked and verified for performance/content by Microsoft? Or is anything ok?

Thanks!

Solution

  • Company-Hub is not actually an AppStore, but a simple app that allows for the side-loading of internal enterprise apps. The workflow for this is as follows (in over simplified terms:

    1. Generate a company code signing certificate as per the requirements on MSDN, and convert to an application enrolment token using the tools supplied.
    2. Installed the enrolment token (AET) on the devices you wish to distribute on (you can e-mail/download this and simply open the file).
    3. Create your company hub app, and sign it with the certificate you purchased.
    4. Distribute the app's XAP file in a similar fashion (internet/email/MDM provider).

    Now you have the capability of installing enterprise apps on to your phone, you need a mechanism to inform the end user they exist. You do this via any means you feel comfortable with, such as publishing an RSS/OData feed that you consume within your company hub. Once you have your lists of apps displayed you can use some of the new Windows Phone 8 APIs to detect if apps are already installed. You can install apps simply by downloading the XAP from your own server and allowing the OS to handle the XAP file natively.

    The process has been designed with device management (MDM) providers in-mind, so that when you join your device to an MDM provider it will automatically install the AET and company hub XAP. However you don't need to rely on using an MDM so using e-mail or URLs to download the files work equally well.