Policy to allow non-admins to install software?

Yes but it does open up potential security risks   http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa369519(VS.85).aspx
You can also use group policy to install applications for computers/users.'
Thanks
Mike

How are the apps deployed, per machine/user?

I am not a fan of the above policy, for the obvious reasons, nor am I a fan of Power Users....

You can use GPO to deploy the apps, as well as Machine Startup scripts to call the installs.....

What I am thinking of is updates to adobe apps like the flash player and the adobe reader.    I would like for users designated as staff (in the staff OU)to be able to install the updates.  Other than that, we either do our installs manually or by group policy push.

I would ultimately like to build a windows update server to take care of windows updates and adobe updates but I don't know how to do that.

And our apps are installed per machine.

There are MSI files for Adobe updates, so you can GPO push those without difficulty. WSUS is only really capable of pushing out updates for Microsoft products currently, unfortunately. You may want to look into SCOM, though, as that could help you out a lot.

There are a lot of good step by steps for WSUS.  If you want to push out updates to non Microsoft products then you may want to look into shavlik (really nice product)
 
http://www.shavlik.com/wsus-is-not-enough.aspx 
Thanks
Mike

Thanks for all the info it's very helpful.  I have done searches mysefl for wsus but could you point me to one of the step-by-steps you like please?

thanks,

Maureen