[X4U] Managing multiple iOS devices in small business?

[Joe Sporleder]

I am the production manager for a small newsprint publishing company. Just curious if anyone on this list manages a small group of iOS devices (particularly iPad) in a small business environment? We have 3 iPads (2 wi-fi only, and 1 with a Verizon Wireless account). To this point, they've been used as personal info devices. The one I use personally has been setup with my personal Apple ID, but any corporate app purchases have been made with the ID tied to our corporate credit card. I have found a few apps that are perfect for turning our iPads into mobile offices for our sales team, including communicating advertising needs back to the corporate office. I envision up to 7 or so iPads and possibly a few iPhones, about 10 devices all together. 

The approach I think I need to take is assign each device (or person if they are running a corporate owned iPhone and iPad) its own unique Apple ID and Password (with the password me being the only one that would know), that way I can control what gets installed on the iOS devices, since I would have the corporate AMEX card tied to paying for any purchased apps. Even though each employee would be assigned  an Apple ID for managing apps, I would still like to be able to share information across the devices, such as contact information. For example, if we have a core set of contact info (customers and business associates that every employee should have ready access to), would like that contact info to be shared automatically across all company owned devices (desktop Macs and iPhones and iPads). I am also considering employing a similar strategy for buying software from the Mac app store for our Macs used in production (would still buy our graphic design software directly from the manufacturer, I'm thinking more like odds and ends, like Pages, Numbers, utilities, etc).

Let me know how you all manage iOS devices for small workgroups, utilizing the iOS and Mac app stores.

Joe