Is the process for an internal iPhone/iPad app different to the normal process?

I'm wondering if the process for development & publishing/release/distribution for an iPad/iPhone app that is used internally only is different to the normal process and would welcome any notes/advise on the best practice for developing apps for internal use only.

Examples:

A car dealership app wants an iPad app either as a replacement for glossy brochures.
A factory wants to use an iPad app as an inventory tool to help the internal tracking of warehousing, stock control, etc.
A sales person wants to use the iPad as a presentation tool and the app has private or confidential data that would should not be publicly available.

In these examples, an app in the app store may not make much sense.

Obviously the company needs to register themselves in the App store process, and you could help set up the provisioning for every iPad device they want to register with.

But beyond that, I'm wondering if the process for development and deployment for internal usage is different to the normal process?

For example if I'm building the app for the client, does it have to be on the internal license from the get-go; or can I use our license to build the app and then send it to Apple with the client's license?

Also, does it need to be bundled, packaged differently?

Any best practice hints on tips would be cool.

Thanks.

Solution

If you have an enterprise developer account (or whatever such things are called), you are able to add a lot of devices as ad-hoc, and distribute your application freely to those devices. No approval process is required. It also allows you to do over-the-air distributions and all kinds of handy stuff..

However, the enterprise account has a few strict conditions.

http://developer.apple.com has more info for you.