While Microsoft spends a lot of time promoting its consumer oriented Bing apps for Windows 8, the company has also released a number of Modern apps for the OS meant for enterprise and IT users that perhaps don"t get as much attention. In the past couple of weeks, the company has launched three new apps for those customers in the Windows Store.
One of those new app releases is Microsoft Dynamics CRM, which requires a link to a PC running Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013. Microsoft"s notes for the app claim that it will help business customers stay on top of their operations while on the go, by tracking sales performance of products with charts and graphics, calling up customer data and listing any contacts and leads from the dashboard. The app also supports pinning specific information to the Windows 8 Start screen.
Another new app, made more for IT workers, is Lync 2013 PreCall Diagnostics, which requires a Lync account. This app lets users check out the current state of their network to make sure that a Lync call or meeting can go through. They can run a test in On Demand mode to check out the network"s performance for a longer period of time. The app offers graphics to show the status of a Lync network with indicators that show things like Network MOS, Packet Loss and Interarrival Jitter.
Finally, IT workers who want to sit back and learn more about Microsoft"s products can check out the TechNet Edge Show app for Windows 8. The app allows users to access the weekly web video show which offers technical tutorials and information on software like Windows Server, Windows Azure, System Center, Hybrid Cloud, and People Centric IT.