Managing third party apps

[Jimx]

Hello,

I wanted to get some feedback from everyone on how you manage third party applications in your environment. I’ve been searching the forums off and on for months and still can’t seem to find the information I need.

In our environment, due to our security policy, all third party downloads must be blocked. I have done some research on this and have found the best practice is to push applications out, through software configurations, from the BES. I have had a lot of success with this, the only problem is that almost no developers release the .alx files for their applications. So far, I believe I have found three applications that have released their .alx files.

If someone wants an application, other than the three I have on the BES, I have to physically get the device from them, apply a policy that allows third party downloads, download the app, reapply the restricted policy, and give them their phone back. Granted, we only have 35-40 devices company wide, but touching every device anytime someone wants an application is far too time consuming.

If anyone has any tips, suggestions, or even a model of how you manage applications in your environment it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for any information!