Google Play Private Channel lets you target your distribution

Google has launched a new service in its Play store that allows companies to create and distribute its own apps — all within their company ecosystem.

If you have a business, but have been worried about security in terms of your employees using their own Android software, Google Play Private Channel might just be the solution. Designed for business use, the service allows companies to distribute internal apps to their employees.

Nesting within Google Play, the service can be used by customers who have a Google Apps for Business, Education or Government domain. Once the customer has been set up with a Private Channel account, they can register with the Android Developer Console to make and distribute apps on their private channel.

Google said in a post on its enterprise blog:

Whether you've built a custom expense reporting app for employees or a conference room finder, the Google Play Private Channel is designed to make your organisation's internal apps quick and easy for employees to find. Once your company has loaded these internal apps using the Google Play Developer Console, users just need to log-in with their company email address to browse the Private Channel and download apps.

Within the Private Channel, the company can set up various permission tiers; if the head of sales only wants an app to go to the sales team, they can be partitioned off so that no one else gets access to that particular app.

Naturally, the service is only for Android apps on Android devices; and, at this point in time, apps pushed to a private channel cannot be pushed live to the Google Play public store, and vice versa.

You can read more about the service and how to set it up on the Google Play Private Channel support page.