Tight Budget? Try Open Source

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.

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