Small Businesses & Open Source Software

(Author's Note: This article was written for the BiS, a local publication that's part of the Savannah Morning News. For more info on this publication and Jesse's biweekly column, visit www.businessinsavannah.com.)

Did you know that there are software alternatives that replace those expensive programs that are business “necessities” today? Open Source Software is, in most cases, free software whose programming, or 'source code', is visible, or open, to the public.

It is basically the opposite model of, say, Microsoft Windows. Windows is not open source. Microsoft does not show outsiders their code, and they charge for the finished product. That makes sense, right? I mean, why would a company give its work away for free? There are many reasons, but for the purpose of this article, let's just be happy that they do.

So how can you start using Open Source Software? Let's examine a few alternatives that can potentially save you some real money.

OpenOffice.org – This software suite is basically a clone of Microsoft Office. There are open source alternatives to Word, Powerpoint, Excel, and several others. Just head over to www.openoffice.org and download the suite. There's a very small learning curve if you already know how to work the Microsoft versions. The best part is that the OpenOffice.org software is compatible with their closed source counterparts. You can save text documents as .doc files, spreadsheets as .xls files, etc. Just go to “save as” in the file menu and you're good to go.

Mozilla Thunderbird – Now that Microsoft is charging for Outlook, you may want to find a free Email program. While Gmail is still my number one choice, Mozilla Thunderbird behaves almost exactly like MS Outlook for those people who don't want to switch to a web-based email program. Sure, Microsoft offers Windows Live Mail for free with their new operating systems, but I still prefer the open source version. Head over to www.getthunderbird.com for this one.

PDFCreator – Want to create PDFs without having to buy Adobe software or other third party applications? PDFCreator is an open source program that integrates itself into your printer setup and allows you to create PDFs from just about anywhere. You can visit www.pdfforge.org for this one.

There are literally hundreds of other alternatives out there. GIMP can replace Photoshop, Audacity is a free audio editor, Filezilla is a great FTP program... the list goes on and on.

You can even ditch your operating system in favor of free, open source alternatives. Linux can accomplish the majority of what Microsoft Windows or Apple's OSX can, however the learning curve on this switch can be a lot higher than the examples I've already stated.

Detractors of Open Source Software cite instability, poor support, and other issues as reasons to be leery of these alternatives, but aren't these issues that we have on a regular basis with paid software, too? I always recommend a healthy dose cynicism when something sounds too good to be true, but Open Source Software can provide real, legitimate alternatives to their expensive counterparts.

Cost savings can vary, but an office that can replace Microsoft Office on multiple computers can stand to save thousands of dollars per year. Isn't that worth exploring?

For those who still aren't convinced, please know I wrote this article using OpenOffice.org. I think it got the job done, and the price was right, too.