The Google Play Private Channel has been established to give business organizations an easy way to distribute internal Android apps to their employees and associates.

Google has provided a new route for distributing apps to a limited audience. This gives Google Apps for Business, Government or Education customers the ability to distribute custom built apps to their employees or students without the hassle of having to go in for sideloading, which requires a website.

According to Google Play Product Manager Ellie Powers writing on the Official Google Enterprise Blog blog post:

"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 organization’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."

The move probably will be welcomes by both Google Apps customers and their users alike but it is also likely to introduce new users to Google Play and may persuade more businesses to sign up for the Android Developer Console.