Publishing the same app on multiple MDM, EMM Solutions

[Viprav]

Hello All,

We assist the underprivileged and are attempting to distribute our application to students who have been provided with EMM-enabled Android devices by the government. However, we've encountered a problem while trying to publish our application on the EMM platform; it's generating the following error:

"The package name '*****************' is already in use by another application."

In seeking advice on this matter, I received the following feedback:

If the EMM platform utilizes a public/private Play Store, they share the same library and for large-scale deployments, the EMM provider should register with an enterprise Play Store. This would allow them to publish any application within their ecosystem without conflicts arising from the general domain.

Could anyone confirm if this information is accurate? I would appreciate some insights on this issue.

Regards,

[jasonbayton]

Play only allows one package name across the entire store, so uploading to multiple enterprise iframes will result in the error you saw.

For your use case, set yourself up on play.google.com/console and upload your app, as a private app, there. You can add in the organisation ID of every student environment you want then, and they can search for it as a public app inside their iframe. 

Managed Google Play is under advanced settings in the play console. 

Note as you've already consumed the package name in a customer environment, when you upload to play it'll need to be under a new package name. 

[Lalit2690]

I believe in such large deployments and sensitive projects an EMM partner should have a sperate enterprise store to publish in-house apps on devices by uploading Android APK through EMM console. 

Large deployments has multiple custom apk's with project focused content to meet & achieve end user  requirements. This may vary project to project.
In such scenarios EMM's separate enterprise store helps with seamless app distribution, manage app updates & versions, provides better insights. 

[jasonbayton]

The direction Google has taken management means that's not a simple option for AMAPI platforms, the EMM would need signature permissions for every OEM they want to support. 

If hosting on play is a concern, orgs can host externally and just deliver though play - https://bayton.org/android/host-apps-externally/