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Tight Budget? Try Open Source

July 26, 2007

Starting a business even a home based or online one requires money. A big part of your computer expenses is not the computer itself. It’s in the software. Business grade software like Microsoft Office or Adobe Acrobat to create all those nice PDF’s can cost a pretty penny.

So what can a cash strapped start up do? Give open source software a shot. Generally, open source software is software that’s free to download and free to use. Yes, you can use it for your business.

There are so many excellent software that you can download and use freely. Many of them are business grade and could work better than the popular (and expensive) alternatives.

One such is OpenOffice. I’ve been using it for over a year. It’s an alternative for Microsoft Office. I actually prefer it over Microsoft Office now because it’s got built in PDF and includes a drawing program to help me create nice flow charts and such. I can open Microsoft Office files that get sent to me and create .doc and .xls to send to others too.

But that’s not the only type of software. You can get accounting software, customer relationship managers, audio editors, web site builders and more. Ready to give them a try? Open Source Alternative is a great site to find what’s available.

Last 5 posts by lynette

Lynette Chandler is a mompreneur who has a knack for teaching other entrepreneurs about the technology and how to recognize and apply its power and trends to their marketing. Lynette brings to the table a marketing career of sixteen years as well as four years of experience doing technical management. She is the owner of TechBasedMarketing.com and is a married mother of 3, living in Eastern North Carolina.

Written by lynette · Filed Under Lynette Chandler 

Comments

4 Responses to “Tight Budget? Try Open Source”

  1. Mara B. on July 27th, 2007 10:04 am

    Lynette, I used OpenOffice for quite some time, but was able to get a copy of MicroSoft Office Suite. So, that’s what I’ve been using for almost 2 years. I had some problems with OpenOffice being slow to open. Maybe it’s changed since I used it last. I might have to give it another try. Thanks for the link, as well. I’ll have to take a look around there. :)

  2. admin on July 27th, 2007 2:07 pm

    Hey Mara, OO can be a little slow on opening. Guess it just never bothered me too much. I am not an Microsoft basher and don’t see or understand a need to do so. However, as a user, I find Office installs a lot of stuff on my computer that to me is unnecessary. Yet, I can’t get rid of it because it’s ‘required’.

    I’ve been using OO 2.0 and it is an improvement from the older version.

  3. Top Internet Business on October 8th, 2007 12:08 am

    Top Internet Business

    I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting

  4. Free Software Downloads on October 8th, 2007 9:42 am

    Free Software Downloads

    I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting

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