MonoTouch - should we go with a corporate or professional license?

Question

We are a software developer ready to develop iPhone / iPad applications for one of our customers.

We understand that in order to deploy our application to our client, they must register in the Apple iOS Developer Enterprise program and add us to the development team.

It is unclear whether we need to buy a MonoTouch license for Enterprise Distribution or a simple Professional license that will allow us to sign and deploy the application on a large number of devices if the client is already registered with the Apple Enterprise Program.

Although the question focuses on MonoTouch licensing options, any practical recommendations on how to handle the general scenario described in the first sentence will also be useful.

Thanks.

Answer 1

There are two differences between Professional and Enterprise licenses for MonoTouch:

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

In addition, as far as I know, the licenses are identical. Both allow you to create full iOS applications without restrictions.

Depending on your needs, you may want to upgrade to a 5-Pack volume license. This gives you five licenses for the price of four, and allows all your employees to share them. In many cases, I think this is the best option.