The Top 10 Products of the Year

At the end of each year, eWEEK Labs analysts look back on the products they have reviewed and pick the ones that stand out for their innovation and ability to meet the ever-changing—and increasingly challenging—needs of the enterprise. Combined, the products on this year’s list form the foundation of the next-gen enterprise.

Stupid technology tricks: eWEEK Labs picks the biggest tech missteps
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Adobe AIR 

Going back to the late 1990s, people have been talking about the Web as an operating system. Many believe that it was because of these ideas that Microsoft decided to aggressively go after Netscape.

To help further this vision, many people at this time began working on rich Internet applications, or RIAs. These included everything from Macromedia Flash to Java to Curl to ActiveX to some technologies that no longer exist. These products made it possible to build more interactive and GUI-like interfaces for Web applications, though in most cases the apps stayed tied to the browser.

What have become the next generation of RIAs are Web applications that can run independently of a browser—applications that run like those on a desktop but that still use Web services and interfaces for data and interactivity.

The product that comes closest right now to the true vision of this next-generation Web application is Adobe AIR. Descended from Flash, AIR makes it possible to build powerful and interactive applications that have all of the benefits of both Web and desktop apps (such as offline capabilities, in the latter case).

—Jim Rapoza 

Agito RoamAnywhere Solution

With mobile phones becoming the preferred mode of voice communication for many employees, mobile phone costs are skyrocketing for many companies.

FMC (fixed mobile convergence) solutions solve this problem, allowing end users to seamlessly leverage Wi-Fi for voice over IP communications while using their corporate PBX profile on the road.

With its new emphasis on enterprise-grade redundancy and security—as well as integration into Cisco’s Motion to aid in roaming decisions among networks—Agito’s RoamAnywhere Solution builds upon its already outstanding fingerprint location deterministics, line-side PBX integration and solid client-side software. All of this provides an outstanding solution to help extend companies’ existing infrastructure to the mobile work force.

—Andrew Garcia