There is a wealth of free software available to companies on the market, no matter what job they need to do there will be some form of free software available to do it. What the user needs to ascertain is whether that software provides the same level of functionality that they require or that a paid equivalent will provide.
If you did decide to take the free software route, then there are two options available, complete system using free software, which includes operating systems, mail server, file server, web server, word processing packages, spreadsheet packages, graphic packages... the list is endless. Or you could just use free software for some of the roles required, e.g. instead of using Microsoft Office you could opt for the free Open Office application instead of Photoshop, you could use GIMP (Graphical Image Manipulation Package).
It is of course possible to run a business on free open source software. You can use a linux server such as Ubuntu, that can look after you mail and file servers. This can be extended to housing your own webserver using apache to run html or php scripts. Whether it is feasible is a different matter. Although there is a lot of support and help on the internet for Linux, it is still not close to Windows when it comes to setup and maintenance. Where Windows predominantly use GUI interface to run commands, Linux although is using more and more GUI interfaces, still requires a lot of command line functions to administer functions. This if you have the time to learn them is not a problem, however if time is an issue or if you are not IT trained and are just ‘dabbling’ to help provide support for the company then using linux could be more costly in time spent setting up, understanding the systems and maintaining than it would be to buy an Microsoft setup that you may already understand. You could just decide to swap Microsoft Office for Open Office. Open Office is a free office application and with Office 2010 professional coming in at around £200 per license then it would be a change worth considering. Open Office fully integrates with Microsoft Office documents, and you can even get a portable version that can be run from a USB. So if you need to change a document and the machine you are on hasn’t got a office application installed, then you can just run it from your USB device and still make the change.
There are many arguments for and against using free software, it is down to each individual to weigh up the benefits and costs of switching over to new systems, new maintenance screens, new software packages. If your company users Microsoft office now, what would be the fallout if you switched over to open office? Below are a number of resources used to help put this article together and also a list of paid software solutions and the free alternatives.
Please use the blog and the Tech Club forum to post you thoughts on using free software, have you a good or bad experience? Are you considering the switch? If you have switched over, what were the benefits or implications if any?
Resources
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