The 2014 Enterprise App Awards

And The Award Goes To...

For the enterprise worker, apps are becoming an ever-more-critical part of daily life. They remind us of meetings, serve up documents, store our thoughts and keep us in touch. And this year they do a whole lot more. Each year, app developers from all over the world vie for the honor of being presented by the CRN Test Center with an Appy. Here are this year's best, the recipients of the 2014 Enterprise App Awards.

Analytics

Winner: New Relic's App For iOS And Android

OS: Android, iOS

Price: Free for existing customers

People are visiting your website and using your apps. Great. But what features are they using, for how long, and are they coming back? In business to answer these questions is New Relic, a software analytics company that puts a simple interface atop the billions of data points resulting from the interactions of millions of applications and their users each day. Getting the Appy is New Relic's App for iOS and Android, a free app that provides access to push notifications for app performance and availability issues, and realtime and historical data for browser and server-side apps, native mobile apps, server resource utilization, end-user satisfaction ratings, performance of key business transactions, event notifications and app errors. Also available for iOS, New Relic Mobile lets app developers and IT departments access performance metrics of their applications anytime. Pricing for the SaaS back end starts at $29 per month, per app.

Communications

Winner: Voxer

OS: Android, iOS, Windows Mobile/Phone

Price: Free

These days, the office can be anywhere you are. And apps such as Voxer keeps teammates in constant contact regardless of the mobile device they happen to be carrying. This innovative communication and collaborative Android, iOS and Windows Mobile/Phone app for businesspeople and enterprise workers enables instant communication through push-to-talk, recorded voice messages, text, photos and location sharing. Unlike two-way radios, Voxer's push-to-talk messages can be recorded and played back at will. A recent update to the subscription-based Voxer Business for Android includes a redesigned interface, a walkie-talkie mode and an Easy Talk Widget, permitting headset communication without unlocking the screen. For the enterprise, there's complete data retention, single sign-on and encryption. A back-end app permits administrators or dispatchers to listen in and communicate with groups from a single console. Voxer is free.

Contact Management

Winner: daVinci Inside

OS: iOS

Price: Free

Who entered the building today? With daVinci Inside, ’the app at your front desk,’ such information need never be in doubt. This simple visitor log app for iPad can be useful to virtually any company that's interested in keeping track of who came in and when. DaVinci Inside replaces the legacy paper visitor log with a free modern app that can handle multiple instances for multiple entrances, saves and syncs visitor data in the cloud, can be customized with downloadable skins, and integrates with an employee directory to help visitors figure out where to go. According to daVinci, Inside is in use at hundreds of companies and organizations, including banks, schools, fitness centers, daycare centers, federal contractors, construction businesses and hotels.

Enterprise Collaboration

Winner: Harmon.ie Mobile

OS: Android, BlackBerry, iOS, Windows Mobile/Phone

Price: $19.99 plus $4 per user, per month

Juggling apps on a mobile device can be a challenge, particularly when it involves the pressures of real-time collaboration. For organizations that use SharePoint and other Microsoft back-end systems, Harmon.ie Mobile offers a top-notch solution. For $19.99 plus $4 per month per mobile user, Harmon.ie Mobile puts Office 365, SharePoint, OneDrive, Yammer and Enterprise Mobility Suite into a single pane of glass. When a communication arrives, the app pops up within the user's current work context and facilitates a response or tasks, such as sharing or modifying an Office document, assigning a task, or responding to an email or text, all in as nondisruptive a way as possible. The back end of the solution is implemented as a SharePoint add-on. A free version offers read-only document access.

Human Capital Management

Winner: NetSuite TribeHR Mobile for iOS

OS: iOS

Price: Free

Human resource managers keep track of a lot of moving parts. For getting help on the road, NetSuite offers TribeHR Mobile for iOS, a free app for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch that enables entrepreneurs and enterprise HR managers to securely access corporate HR information and social tools to organize and engage employees for boosting productivity and morale and conducting any required company businesses while on the road. Other specialized tools include those for managing recruitment programs, employee rewards and joint customer engagements. Changes made on the app are kept in sync with the back end. There's also a searchable employee directory, time-off management interface, and social news feed for worker recognition, birthdays, service anniversaries and goals, time off and company calendar events. The app works with existing NetSuite TribeHR employee, manager and administrator accounts.

Information Access/Management

Winner: FinancialForce SCM

OS: Android, iOS

Price: $99 per user, per month

Supply chain management is the beating heart of any business that makes or sells. For many of those, Salesforce.com is the lifeblood of customer relations. Combining the two is FinancialForce SCM, which uses the Salesforce CRM engine to automate the logistics and order fulfillment process, allowing a company to efficiently acquire, manage and sell inventory. The FinancialForce SCM mobile application also provides visibility into customer and supplier activity from anywhere there's an Internet or data connection. The app works with the company's billing, accounting, revenue recognition and PSA applications to provide access to shipment status, contract changes, reverse logistics information, invoices, payments, professional service project status, discrete margin analysis and general business profitability. FinancialForce SCM pricing starts at $99 per user, per month.

Internet of Things

Winner: Synnex Insteon for Hub

OS: Android, iOS, Windows Mobile/Phone

Price: Free

Gartner predicts that by 2020, the world will contain 25 billion smart, interconnected devices talking to one another with no human involvement whatsoever. Helping reach that prophecy is Synnex Insteon for Hub, a free app for Insteon building automation and control technologies that turns any smartphone into a remote control and monitoring appliance. The tool can control light bulbs, wall switches, outlets, thermostats and other common devices. A notification system can alert administrators of unexpected motion, water leaks or other activities via email or text. A scheduling system can automatically control lights, temperature, cameras and other electrical devices as desired for security, comfort or economy. Building settings are stored in the cloud for free.

Productivity

Winner: EMC Syncplicity for iPhone

OS: iOS

Price: Free

Cloud-based storage solutions afford easy file sharing among corporate colleagues, but they can represent huge problems for companies worried about data security, management and compliance. EMC Syncplicity is a Dropbox-like solution with the ability to add enterprise-grade controls and security. Acquired by EMC in 2012, the Syncplicity app has now been totally rewritten with an all-new 3-D paneled interface for functions and folder navigation, native Office document editing and PDF viewing, and predictive analytics to anticipate user behavior and present relevant content and automate tasks such as file sharing with groups via email. For example, when mailing a whiteboard photo captured at a meeting, the app can pre-populate the email with all of the meeting's participants. Forgot the name of a file but remember who sent it? A feature called visual search shows co-worker faces and selecting one or more instantly filters the file list.

Security

Winner: FireEye Mobile Security

OS: Android

Price: Free

The need for strong security can never be understated, and the Android platform has taken more than a few knocks. Helping to prevent any further black eyes is FireEye Mobile Security, a free app that the company says was built for Android from the ground up to identify and halt threats of all kinds. With the FireEye Mobile Threat Prevention ecosystem at its back, FireEye Mobile Security identifies advanced malware, compromised ad-ware and software vulnerabilities from mobile applications in real time using behavioral analysis and blocks malicious apps from execution. Immediately upon installation, the tool scans existing apps and interrupts new app installations to provide a detailed analysis and threat score. The FireEye Mobile Threat Prevention Management add-on gives IT administrators an enterprise-wide view of mobile threats on devices and their network.

Systems Administration/Management

Winner: Dell Software K1000 GO

OS: Android, iOS

Price: Free

Enterprises using Dell's Kace K1000 Systems Management Appliance will be happy to have Kace K1000 GO, a new app that gives Android and iOS devices visibility into Dell's asset, configuration and service management system. The app allows IT admins and help desk staff to review and respond to service desk notifications, prioritize and expedite problem resolutions and deploy software right from the device. It also allows end users to submit service desk tickets, access the knowledge base and check on existing ticket status. Users can create, review, update, delete and resolve service desk tickets; attach images from their camera roll; call or email from within a service desk ticket; and view detailed inventory information. Push notifications can be used for real-time alerts of ticket events and status updates.

Editors' Choice

Winner: Ruckus Smart Positioning Technology (SPoT)

OS: Android, iOS

Price: $25

This year's Editors' Choice for Enterprise Applications takes location-aware applications to a whole new level. Ruckus Wireless, the dog-loving wireless infrastructure maker, this year took SPoT out for a walk. The company's new Smart Positioning Technology uses data coming from its Smart Wi-Fi access points to pinpoint a user's location and deliver it to applications to enhance the user experience, promote products or offer a special deal just for walking in the door. An API for the cloud-based app gives enterprise developers the means to gather data from Ruckus' terrestrial devices to deliver an unlimited variety of location-based services to add value and boost their bottom line. The system consists of three main components. The SPoT Location Engine pinpoints in real time a user's location in any indoor environment. The SPoT Location Analytics Dashboard presents the data in a way similar to Google Analytics. The SPoT Engagement API provides hooks for building location-aware apps. For example, while at a ball game, a box might inform the fans in section 12 that there's a Shake Shack 80 feet to their right.