2018 Mobility 100: 25 Coolest Mobile Software And Service Vendors

Mobile Software And Services Innovators

Getting a workforce mobility strategy right means bringing together a lot of elements needed to empower workers both inside and outside the office. Mobile-friendly unified communications, real-time collaboration and mobile videoconferencing and messaging are a few of the pieces that an organization may want to invest in. Mobile data backup and mobile printing capabilities will also be important for many organizations, as will solutions for remote IT management of mobile devices and managing wireless expenses. To give a sense of the key players in mobile software and services right now, we've rounded up 30 of the coolest vendors to know about.

Acronis

Serguei Beloussov, CEO

Headquarters: Singapore and Switzerland

Acronis recently introduced its Backup 12.5 solution to protect workloads in a wide range of environments, including mobile environments such as iOS and Android. Meanwhile, the company's Files Advanced 8.1 offering helps to enable mobile productivity with capabilities such as secure creation and synchronization of Microsoft Office documents.

Addigy

Jason Dettbarn, CEO

Headquarters: Miami

Addigy provides cloud-based software for IT management of Apple's Mac computers, including the MacBook Pro laptops that are becoming increasingly common in mobile workforces. Addigy aims to offer a simplified approach to management of Macs, with easier setup of policies that are enforced at all times, along with remote control and other management capabilities.

AT&T

Randall Stephenson, CEO

Headquarters: Dallas

Enterprise mobility services available from AT&T Business include special services for field management, enhanced push-to-talk capabilities and business messaging, along with mobile VPN for remote access and in-building solutions such as improved indoor wireless reception.

Barracuda Networks

BJ Jenkins, CEO

Headquarters: Campbell, Calif.

Barracuda Networks provides data protection--including backup and archiving--through its Barracuda Essentials offering, with a focus on protection of data in Microsoft Office 365 (a staple of the mobile workforce). Barracuda also scans end-user devices for important files and migrates data to secure locations.

Box

Aaron Levie, CEO

Headquarters: Redwood City, Calif.

Box provides mobile productivity tools for businesses with secure access--sharing, viewing and editing--of files on mobile devices. The Box Capture tool, meanwhile, removes the need for scanning and uploading files by instantly sending photos and videos to Box from a user's iOS device.

Carbonite

Mohamad Ali, CEO

Headquarters: Boston

The Carbonite Mobile app, available for Android, provides access for Carbonite customers to file backups while on their mobile device. Features include browsing through backed-up files and advanced search for locating a specific file.

Cisco Systems

Chuck Robbins, CEO

Headquarters: San Jose, Calif.

Cisco offers a wide range of solutions for enabling enterprise mobility, including mobile VPN and mobile device management (via Cisco Meraki). Meanwhile, Webex Teams (formerly Cisco Spark) offers capabilities for mobile workforces including messaging and content sharing; online meetings with up to 75 video users; and calling via app, IP phone or conference room device.

Dropbox

Drew Houston, CEO

Headquarters: San Francisco

As part of the Dropbox Business offering, mobile solutions include capabilities for managing the use of Dropbox on mobile devices via integrations with third-party enterprise mobility management providers. The Dropbox app for iOS and Android devices provides access to files (including offline access), file sharing and document scanning.

Google

Sundar Pichai, CEO

Headquarters: Mountain View, Calif.

Google developed and maintains the world's most popular mobile operating system, Android, with the latest version (Android Oreo) featuring upgrades such as faster boot times, minimized background activity in rarely used apps and "picture-in-picture" for using two apps simultaneously. Google also includes device management (for Android, iOS and Windows devices) as part of its G Suite offering.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Antonio Neri, CEO

Headquarters: Palo Alto, Calif.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise says that its Aruba networking division has developed a robust "mobile-first architecture" for ensuring performance and security in the age of rapidly increasing connected devices. Aruba recently enhanced its mobile-first architecture with improvements including analytics powered by artificial intelligence (NetInsight) for optimizing network performance.

LogMeIn

William Wagner, CEO

Headquarters: Boston

Remote-access specialist LogMeIn helps to enable mobile workforces with solutions such as LogMeIn Rescue, which provides remote IT support both for PCs (Windows and Mac devices) and for mobile devices (Android and iOS).

Microsoft

Satya Nadella, CEO

Headquarters: Redmond, Wash.

Microsoft's Windows operating system has remained a force in the mobility sphere even as Windows Phone has faded, thanks to the proliferation of highly portable Windows 10 notebooks and tablets, including Microsoft's own Surface line of devices. Meanwhile, Microsoft's Office suite--available both via Office 365 and through individual apps such as Word, PowerPoint and Excel--has been optimized for use on mobile devices running Android, iOS and Windows.

Mitel

Richard McBee, CEO

Headquarters: Kanata, Ontario

With its MiCloud Office phone system, Mitel is targeting mobile workforces with features such as a "seamless experience" across mobile devices, integration with mobile business apps, secure call recording over mobile and reduced latency for mobile communications.

MOBI

Scott Kraege, CEO

Headquarters: Indianapolis

MOBI's platform for managing a corporate mobility strategy serves as a central hub for understanding and optimizing expenses; managing all assets; unifying domestic and global mobility programs; and automating business mobility processes (such as ticket creation).

MobilSense

Dave Stevens, CEO

Headquarters: Agoura Hills, Calif.

MobilSense's offering for wireless expense management delivers capabilities including mobile spend optimization, invoice management, reporting and analytics, usage and policy control, automated procurement and help desk services.

NTT America

Kazuhiro Gomi, CEO

Headquarters: New York

Offerings available from NTT America for enabling enterprise mobility include unified communications (with mobile features such as telephony, messaging and videoconferencing), as well as a mobile workspace offering for secure productivity on mobile devices.

Pulseway

Marius Mihalec, CEO

Headquarters: Dublin, Ireland

Pulseway offers remote IT management software that is available for use by IT professionals on mobile devices including smartphones and tablets. Features include alerts and notifications, checking of real-time health status of systems, and approval of Windows Server updates from mobile devices.

RingCentral

Vlad Shmunis, CEO

Headquarters: Belmont, Calif.

As part of the RingCentral Office cloud-based phone system, the company offers the RingCentral Mobile offering for both iOS and Android devices--providing users with HD voice, fax, text, online meetings and conferencing from mobile devices.

Sprint

Marcelo Claure, CEO

Headquarters: Overland Park, Kan.

Sprint's business mobility offerings include a monthly mobility subscription ("mobility-as-a-service"), enterprise messaging, bring-your-own-device solutions (such as multiple lines for a single device) and mobility office productivity capabilities (such as delivery of Office 365 and G Suite).

Star2Star

Norman Worthington, CEO

Headquarters: Sarasota, Fla.

A provider of unified communications solutions, Star2Star has extended its offerings to mobile devices with capabilities that include calling on any iOS or Android device; voicemail access from mobile devices; and mobile faxing (via the StarFax Mobile app).

ThinPrint

Thorsten Hesse, Chief Product Officer

Headquarters: Berlin, Germany

The ThinPrint Mobile Print app allows users to print from any mobile device onto printers in any location -- including offices, homes, customer sites or hotels. The app automatically identifies available Wi-Fi printers to enable printing without requiring any changes to settings. ThinPrint Mobile Print also encrypts print jobs and integrates with multiple enterprise mobility management systems for securing an organization's data.

T-Mobile

John Legere, CEO

Headquarters: Bellevue, Wash.

T-Mobile's product offerings for businesses include SyncUP Fleet, a small device that plugs into a vehicle's on-board diagnostics port and lets businesses track and manage their fleet from a mobile or desktop application.

Verizon Enterprise Solutions

George Fischer, President

Headquarters: New York

Verizon's enterprise mobility services range from enterprise mobility management and security, to "mobile-first" phone solutions (combining office and mobile phones), to workforce productivity tools (such as apps for real-time collaboration).

Windstream

Tony Thomas, CEO

Headquarters: Little Rock, Ark.

Windstream acquired unified communications vendor Broadview Networks, and now offers Broadview's OfficeSuite--a fully cloud-based offering that can route calls to mobile devices, launch video meetings and provide real-time collaboration among employees.

Xerox

Jeff Jacobson, CEO

Headquarters: Norwalk, Conn.

Xerox's Mobile Print Solutions offerings include the Print Portal app, which enables users to print from mobile devices onto printers from Xerox as well as from competing manufacturers such as HP, Epson, Ricoh and Canon. Print options supported in the app include one- or two-sided printing, color or black-and-white printing, paper size and stapled printouts.