App Store volume purchase program for businesses goes live in the U.S.

As pointed out by The Loop, Apple’s App Store volume purchase program for businesses has gone live. The program, which is currently exclusive to the United States, allows businesses to easily purchase and distribute applications – with volume-based pricing – to employees. Businesses that are interested can now enroll and you will need the following to get started:

• Basic contact information to verify your business
• Dun & Bradstreet number (D-U-N-S) number
• Corporate credit card or PCard to purchase apps

App Store distribution through this program consists of iTunes redemption codes:

The Volume Purchase Program makes it easy to distribute apps within your organization. When you buy apps in volume or custom B2B apps, you will receive redemption codes for each app. You can control who gets the apps by providing these codes to users via email or an internal website. You can also use third-party Mobile Device Management (MDM) solutions to manage redemption codes centrally.

A guide with all the instructions is also available from Apple.