5 Sweet BlackBerry Apps

Cbeyond's Mobile Workforce Manager is a mobile location-based services- and resource-management application suite powered by Xora software. The new service focuses on increasing revenue opportunities and reducing operating costs for companies with field service operations, said Bryan Melton, product marketing manager.





"We saw a big opportunity in the service industry: construction, plumbing, field services, for companies with five to 10 employee users. This is great for employers to track their workforce. Many businesses experience pain points in having visibility into status of what their workers are doing and knowing where they are. It tracks the employees' time, which saves costs," Melton said. "From a cost-containment perspective, it can track fuel costs, travel costs. During the sales process, we use an ROI calculator; it's not uncommon for firms to be able to save $1,500 per employee annually by tracking their workforce's whereabouts. And, it offers employers the information to determine whether they can be productive enough to stick another job on someone's docket."

SocketScan lets users scan an item and then it fills the number into a form just as you would enter a number. The Achilles' heel in data entry, said Kevin Mills, Socket CEO, is that doing it manually doesn't always work in terms of convenience and accuracy.





"SocketScan lets you use a BlackBerry to scan quickly and accurately -- it can be downloaded from our Web site directly to your device. You need to buy the scanner hardware as well. The user can then capture data and doesn't need to bring a laptop to a meeting," Mills said. "It's an ideal solution for field salespeople. For example, the wine and spirits trade has to deal with data entry occasionally. This device is much more 'connected' with white-collar workers: The blue-collar segment is already very well served by devices from Symbol and Motorola, whereas the white-collar one is not. Those workers won't use a separate device. Our two-piece solution offers a Bluetooth connection, but it's not hogging a Bluetooth port. You can simultaneously be on the phone with a Bluetooth headset. It's for those who want to use a small device [the BlackBerry], have a small budget and don't require ruggedization. We're targeted at health care and hospitality, at capturing electronic records and signatures accurately and quickly. We're doing well in the economy as people look to automate."

RideCharge is aimed directly at the corporate traveler, with the Taxi Magic application focused on finding taxis quickly for the harried road warrior. The app is designed to make it easy to get, take and pay taxis, said Toby Russell, co-founder of RideCharge.





"Through Taxi Magic, the user can locate, pay for and document the expense of the cab. The credit card information of the user is stored on the BlackBerry. We connect them straight through to dispatch so they can see exactly when the car leaves the cab company, where it is en route, etc. The credit card is charged by RideCharge, so there is no concern about identity theft; no taxi company ever handles the credit card information."





To pay for the service, a $1.50 fee is added to the cab charge. Once at his or her destination, the user can get out of the cab fast and go -- no fiddling with money or signing receipts. Future killer apps will take advantage of location-based services, Russell said. "You'll have an API with the location of your phone. Based on that, we can present you with choices of cabs in your area. You open the phone and it automatically has your location. That is the way of the future for functional apps."

EAccess Solutions manages productivity for its clients. By unifying communications, eAccess streamlines customers' hardware requirements and lets them reduce their inventories of equipment such as laptops and tablets.





"For eAccess, the health-care, pharmaceutical and legal verticals have been the most aggressive to integrate our mobile enterprise applications," David Bean, president of eAccess (CRN Fast Growth #79), said. "Our portfolio of now over 75 wireless vertical software solutions has enabled many companies to take their existing wireless handsets to the next level of productivity. In many cases, BlackBerrys are replacing laptops and tablet PCs for additional hardware and support savings above and beyond the productivity enhancements from our software. Our BlackBerry health-care application solutions have been selling extremely well and are taking away market share in some instances from our typical Microsoft Windows Mobile handset clientele."

YouMail, a visual voice-mail service for mobile phones, this month debuted a native YouMail in-box for BlackBerry devices called Visual Voicemail Plus. The free app stores incoming voice messages as well as details about the sender on the handheld device. The new app lets users see who called, from where, and even their photographs. Now you can easily find and check the boss' e-mails to you first -- or not.