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Apps to get you started

Cisco WebEx Meetings

With the Cisco WebEx app on BlackBerry 10 you’re able to schedule and join Cisco WebEx meetings, as well as invite and view attendees, chat, screen share, and more. Cisco WebEx has become a key business and collaboration tool, and on BlackBerry 10 it’s one of the key apps helping you connect with colleagues to get more done while on the go.

Box

Box has become known as one of the predominant cloud file storage and collaboration providers. On BlackBerry 10 smartphones Box is integrated into the file system on the device, making it simple for you to access and share your content stored in Box. It’s so easy to access Box files and folders on your BlackBerry 10 smartphone that it feels like they’re stored right there on your device, giving you the ability to quickly access and share important content anywhere you work.

Citrix Podio

Citrix Podio on BlackBerry 10 smartphones is built on HTML5, providing a powerful work collaboration platform that enables you to work the way you want to, where you want to, and using tools that perfectly fit your team’s projects and workflows.

Citrix Podio on Blackberry 10 brings collaboration and business processes together through workspaces and apps that are powerful, collaborative, and social alternatives to spreadsheets, documents and email. You can also develop your own custom apps with easy building blocks (no tech skills required) for managing projects. Over 200,000 organizations around the world already use Podio and we’re excited to bring the power of Podio to the BlackBerry community. Learn more at blog.podio.com

Ricoh HotSpot Printing Application

Ricoh’s print app on BlackBerry 10 smartphones enables you to print documents and presentations on HotSpot enabled printers with the simple click of a button, making it more convenient to print hard copies right from your BlackBerry 10 device. The HotSpot service is available in many public venues such as airport club lounges and hotels. It may also be hosted on a private cloud service for enterprise customers, enabling mobile printing throughout the corporate network.

SalesNOW CRM for BlackBerry 10

SalesNOW on BlackBerry 10 enables you to manage all of your sales data with full access to your critical service and customer information when and where you need it. SalesNOW is also integrated with core BlackBerry 10 features such as email, contacts, phone, and maps functionality, and also automatically synchronizes with the SalesNOW server to give you access to the latest data. This lets you keep up to date with your accounts, and also update them while you’re out of the office, as well as making it easier for you to connect with key contacts.

BMC – BMC Mobility for Incident Management, and BMC Approvals applications

BMC’s applications on BlackBerry 10 smartphones enable you to interact with key business systems – Incident Management as well as Approvals systems while on the go. On BMC Mobility for ITSM Incidents you are able to view incident detals, and interact with incident management tickets to stay up to date, as well as provide updates to incident management items. With BMC Mobility for Approvals, you are able to view and update approval items while away from your desk. Both apps wirelessly synch with the back-end BMC systems to keep information up to date. This enables you to improve productivity by not having to return to your workstation to update trouble tickets, or check the status of approvals.

There you have it; go forth and explore business apps! Be sure to come back here and share your favorites in the comments below.

Note: As this list was pulled from three years of app downloads, not all are compatible with every model of BlackBerry® smartphone. Click through the links to view compatible devices in the BlackBerry App World storefront.

Business Card Reader

Trading business cards at a conference or networking event? Where do they end up? With Business Card Reader for BlackBerry smartphones, they’ll end up right in your contacts. This app utilizes ABBYY text recognition technology and your smartphone’s auto-focus camera to interpret the text and load it into your address book.

CamCard

CamCard similarly captures business card information, and stores it within the app inside a virtual business card library, which is fully searchable and sports a great interface that also retains the original image of the card for identification.

Splashtop Remote Desktop HD

Head out on the road and retain full access to your PC or Mac desktop via Splashtop Remote Desktop HD for BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablets. Notably, this remote desktop app supports the streaming of video and audio from your PC or Mac, as well as full application and file access.

e-Mobile Today Professional for BlackBerry

Take control into your own hands with this app for BlackBerry smartphones that allows you to craft a personalized dashboard filled with shortcuts and useful information. View appointments tasks, contacts, application shortcuts, and more – all with customizable views.

Remote Desktop for BlackBerry PlayBook

Another fantastic remote desktop app for BlackBerry PlayBook tablets, Remote Desktop allows you to access your Windows-based PC from across the Internet without sacrificing functionality. There is no need to install third-party software or server applications, as this app utilizes functionality built into recent versions of Microsoft® Windows™ operating systems.

BuzzOff – Best call blocker. Block unwanted calls and do not allow caller to leave a voicemail

This app allows you to control how your phone handles calls from unknown or private numbers, as well as from 1-800 numbers. You can also set up blocking settings straight from the call log, and set up advanced settings such as time delays for hanging up or blocking a call. Check the log file for a list of successfully blocked calls.

Remote Print

Print documents straight from your BlackBerry smartphone via a lightweight application available for installation on your desktop PC. The desktop application acts as a print server, while the app on your BlackBerry smartphone allows you to print documents from the file browser, email messages, and more. The connection is made over Wi-Fi®, and a BlackBerry Enterprise Server connection is supported allowing you to print to office printers.

Wi-Fi File Transfer

This app allows you to transfer files between your Mac or PC and your BlackBerry smartphone via fast Wi-Fi connection. Using a browser on your PC or Mac, you’ll have the ability to access the file system on your smartphone (including the SD card) and transfer media, documents, or other files. Best of all, the system utilizes a Wi-Fi connection, which means fast speeds and no data charges.

Contacts Cleaner

For those who like to stay organized, there’s nothing worse than a messy address book. Contacts Cleaner fixes this issue automatically, allowing you to scrub your address book for duplicate contacts, reducing clutter and automatically merging contacts to provide a complete picture.

Auto Lock

Auto Lock automatically blocks keyboard input when your backlight brightness times out. This prevents you from accidentally launching an application or sending out a pocket call, and can ultimately help preserve battery life by preventing such situations. You can customize the Auto Lock functionality to set a specific timeout, and to allow certain types of apps to remain usable as exceptions. A “Slide to unlock” style interface appears when input is blocked by the app.

There we have it! If you haven’t had a chance to check out one or more of these apps, head over to BlackBerry App World now to load them onto your BlackBerry smartphone or BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. I’m sure that you have more ideas than what I’ve shared here – get down to that comment box and enlighten us!

The good news is that there are a ton of apps to help you accomplish tasks in each of those categories. We put our heads together and rounded up our “staff picks” for the top 10 BlackBerry® smartphone apps that you can use at networking events. This list is by no means exhaustive, so head over to the gold mine that is the BlackBerry App World™ storefront and start exploring! Mention any of your favorites not on the list in the comments below.

On to the list!

Concur – Expense and Travel Management
Track your expenses and mileage while on the road

Taxi fares, lunches, hotels… It’s important to keep track of your expenses while traveling and attending events. It’s also important to accomplish this in a way that helps make it easy, keeps it organized, is rapidly accessible, and super convenient. This pretty much sums up Concur, an app built to manage not only expenses, but also mileage.

Minute Saver
Save on roaming charges by tracking your minutes

On the note of keeping a handle on your expenses, the Minute Saver app for BlackBerry smartphones will notify you once your call has reached a certain time limit, which helps you to save on roaming charges. The app options allow you to customize the notifications to meet your needs, even differentiating between incoming and outgoing calls.

Poynt
Get familiar in a new city

In the evenings, you may find yourself looking for a place to grab a bite, see a movie, find some shopping place to dive into, or get some good deals in any of those categories. I still return to Poynt as my go-to tool for finding my way in a new city. If you rented a car for your trip to a conference, Poynt also offers fuel price information near your location for the US, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

Wikitude
Discover the world around you

This app allows you to discover your surroundings on the cutting edge of technology with augmented reality. Find events, articles, localized tweets, Wikipedia articles, and more. You can even create your own personalized virtual world, and contribute to what’s already available. This is a great way to find points of interest, BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM™) contacts, information about what you’re looking at, and a whole lot more. Many modern events even utilize Wikitude within the conference itself, so be sure to give it a try!

Dropbox
Keep important documents accessible

Before heading out to an event, I like to synchronize important documents that I may want to reference or share to a cloud storage account like Dropbox. This way, I have synchronized access while on the go, and I can also upload photos from my smartphone to the account. The best part? Downloading Dropbox for your BlackBerry smartphone provides you with 2GB of free storage!

Transit apps
Navigate transit routes like a pro

The above link will push you over to BlackBerry App World with the search term “Transit” already plugged in. There are transit-based apps for many major cities around the world, allowing you to get a handle on the routes and schedules for where you’re at. With one of these apps at your side, you can discover how to quickly and cheaply navigate a city, while timing it just right to help you never be late for an appointment.

Card2Contact
Convert business cards to BlackBerry smartphone contacts

This is a solution for converting business card contact information into a BlackBerry smartphone contact entry. Simply open this app, snap a picture of the business card, and the details are transcribed. Purchase credits to utilize the Manual Transcription Team that helps to verify the information. Check the BlackBerry App World download page for this app regularly; there are often great promotions available!

Evernote
Tag and bag all of the snippets and ideas that you come across

This is one of my all-time favorite apps and, in my opinion, a must-have for heading out into the world with your BlackBerry smartphone. I’m constantly finding interesting bits of information, whether it’s something that I see while browsing, or something I snap a picture of using my BlackBerry® Bold™ 9900 smartphone. Evernote keeps me sane by allowing me to tag, organize, and synchronize all of this information – allowing me to keep track of it all. The applications for this app extend far into both business and personal use cases.

ItsMe! – share your contact info with NFC
A simple tap and you’re connected

The use cases for NFC technology are plentiful at networking events. With this new app, you choose a contact entry that represents your information, then launch the app, and simply tap your NFC-enabled BlackBerry smartphone with another NFC-enabled BlackBerry smartphone to allow an individual to accept your contact information into their address book. It’s clean, it’s simple, and it’s fast.

Tungle.me for BlackBerry
Schedule appointments across organizations, calendar systems, and time zones

Tungle.me helps you to share your calendar and send meeting invitations without the mess of phone calls, emails, and double bookings. Your Tungle.me account can synchronize with popular online calendar systems including BlackBerry, Microsoft Outlook, Google Calendar, Apple iCal, Entourage for Mac, Lotus Notes, Yahoo! and Windows Live. My favorite feature of this app is how it allows you to connect with others from different organizations even though you may not be using the same platform.

BONUS: 5 Useful BlackBerry shortcuts to use at events
More on the Inside BlackBerry Help Blog!

1. Press and hold the “Q” button on your keyboard to toggle between your current sound profile and vibrate. Great for quickly silencing your phone while attending a meeting or having a coffee with a colleague.
2. Looking for information in a specific email or from a particular contact? While in the Messages app, press the “S” key on your keyboard to open up the search dialogue.
3. Trying to move fast? When selecting a menu item after pressing the Menu key, you can simply begin typing the first letter of the menu item that you want, and quickly jump to its location.
4. When typing in a message or BBM chat, enter the word (without quotes) “mypin” or “mynumber”; they’ll automatically be swapped for what they describe!
5. Made a few more BBM friends at the conference? Organize them into groups, and then use the spacebar to navigate between them in the BBM app.

What are your favorite apps, shortcuts, or techniques to utilize mobile technology at conferences or networking events? Share yours in the comments below.

Apps are all the rage in the consumer space, but people often forget about the thousands of mission critical applications that never hit an app store like the BlackBerry® App World™ storefront. These enterprise applications can increase productivity, improve communications, or in the case of Claron Technology’s Nil Medical application for BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet, potentially help save lives.

Recently, Claron Technology introduced a new extension to their Nil family of medical imaging viewers to support anytime, anywhere web-based viewing of a full range of medical images. The Claron Nil application for BlackBerry PlayBook, which is available in BlackBerry App World (but more likely to be deployed through tools such as BlackBerry® Mobile Fusion and the ‘work channel’ of BlackBerry App World), includes both NilRead for diagnostic applications and NilShare for referring to a physician.

The Nil app for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet provides one-click, ultra-fast access to the innovative image viewer running either on Claron’s NilCloud or a medical facility’s dedicated Nil server. There is a clear need for mobile access to medical information, as physicians and other medical staff are constantly on the move – even within their own facility. Moreover, with home-based and Web viewing of PACS (Picture Archiving and Communications Systems) having increased 3 to 4 times between 2005-2008 with no signs of stopping, mobility is an increasingly critical requirement for successful PACS deployments.

The information within these apps needs to be not only secure, but easily updated, automatically pushed out, monitored, and archived, which is facilitated via the BlackBerry platform. In an environment where the transfer of vital information is managed through technology, BlackBerry technology provides a secure communication infrastructure for health-care providers. As Claudio Gatti, co-founder and co-CEO of Claron put it, “BlackBerry smartphones are widely used in the medical environment, and we anticipate that the new Nil app for the BlackBerry PlayBook will be very popular among IT managers and physicians in today’s fast-paced, HIPAA-conscious world.”

With this launch, Claron joins a number of other major healthcare technology vendors like Epocrates, Horizon (McKesson) and Allscripts who are all leveraging the BlackBerry platform to mobilize their offerings. In fact, BlackBerry solutions for Healthcare have been a strong part of our overall enterprise offering for many years, and as Peter Ng, Sr. Director, Alliances Strategy & Business Development at Research In Motion® (RIM®) stated: “We’re pleased that Claron is expanding support for the BlackBerry platform with their new Nil app for the BlackBerry PlayBook which offers Nil customers an ultra-portable design, a high resolution display for sharp viewing, and delivers the responsive performance needed for handling medical images”

What mission critical applications does your organization run on BlackBerry technology? What applications do you see becoming increasingly portable? Are there different application requirements for tablets vs. smartphones? We’d love to hear your thoughts.