10 great iPad apps for business

MobileIron, Mountain View, Calif., produces smartphone management technology aimed at business. The company's tech strategy is to move enterprise smartphone data into the cloud and allow for management of it from that viewpoint. MobileIron Sentry allows an enterprise to view all mobile devices attempting to gain access to corporate data, and allow or block them as needed.

A simple application for task and project management and expense tracking. If you're a power-user of task listing and project management apps, a paid alternative would probably be more your style. But as far as freebies, Cube is fine.

If your only previous experience with Nuance's Dragon voice recognition software was years ago when voice recognition and transcription was cumbersome, you're in for a nice surprise with Dragon Diction for iPad. The free application sets up in about a minute and is immediately ready to use -- no lengthy period of reading a book or tutorial so the application can learn your voice patterns. It just works right away. The voice-to-text transcription isn't perfect, but is about 90 percent accurate from our testing. Even more surprising: It's free.

Often one of the biggest bummers in business travel is having to find a different flight or connection because of a change in schedule. Kayak Flight for iPad allows you to quickly scan through available flights and schedules. With a Wi-Fi connection via iPad, it takes about 30 seconds to return a list of potential flights and fares available. Faster than other Web-based travel apps, it's a free app that travelers should have at the ready if they own an iPad.

Effective and astonishingly clear and crisp, Voice Memos for iPad, like its earlier version for iPhone, is simple an effective way to dictate messages and then email them to friends or colleagues. This app, as much as any, provides a good demonstration of how clear and powerful the built-in microphone is on iPads.

There weren't an awful lot of killer news and information apps on iPad on Day 1, but a good one for business is Sky Grid. This free app acts as an aggregator of business news -- but in a quicker, snappier way than, say, Google News.

Citrix, one of the leading names in virtualisation and desktop streaming, has developed a powerful application for turning the iPad into a remote version of your desktop. With support for Windows 7 desktops, Citrix Receiver for iPad provides HD-quality access to data and Windows applications, as well as integration with GoToMeeting for web collaboration. Another freebie that could be worth much more.

iPad has potential to be an enemy of Adobe, what with its refusal to support Flash. But that's not stopping Adobe from getting its foot in the door on the platform, and it provides a cute but effective Adobe Ideas 1.0 for iPad. The free app allows for quick sketching out of ideas and plans, including layered drawings and importation of photos that can be supplemented with illustrated thoughts and ideas.

We started liking Evernote -- a cross-platform application that allows for note-taking and storing on desktops, via web browsers and mobile devices -- a long time ago. Evernote's iPhone application provide powerful mobile access to typed or handwritten notes, PDFs, audio files and more. Not only is its iPad application easier and more powerful to use, like the other versions of its service its entry-level service is free. Evernote on iPad is a nice answer to some critics who are in a snit because they can't easily import Word documents onto iPad. With free Evernote, they can.