Critical.
Authoritative.
Strategic.
Subscribe to CIO Magazine »

Recession Worries? Go Open Source to Cut Costs

These days you have many open source products that are just as feature rich, reliable, useful, and usable as their closed source counterparts.

With the world economy in shambles many businesses are already battening down the hatches expecting rough seas ahead. IT budgets will shrink along with all other budgets, and maybe even more than other budgets. After all, companies still need to advertise and pay their workforce, but they may be able to do without new servers or software for a while. And that is where open source software vendors can help keep the ship sailing.

These days you have many open source products that are just as feature rich, reliable, useful, and usable as their closed source counterparts. And some would argue that they're even better than their closed source counterparts. There are lots of examples in this space. This article is being written in the newly released Open Office 3 word processor, which is just as powerful as the Microsoft Office suite. And that's true in pretty much every sector of software. Need a virtual machine? VirtualBox to the rescue. Need a content management system? Check out WebGUI. Need a desktop replacement for Windows? Check out Ubuntu. Need a customer relationship management system? Try SugarCRM. And this list goes on and on and on.

But those who haven't tried out these products, might reply with. "I've never heard of product X." Or "Yeah, but I need professional support!" You might be surprised to know that every one of the products listed above has a company behind it providing professional support and services. OpenOffice and VirtualBox are supported by Sun Microsystems. WebGUI is supported by Plain Black. Ubuntu is supported by Canonical. And SugarCRM is supported by SugarCRM. And as for never hearing of them, you just did!

Open source applications have one thing that their closed-source brethren don't have: licensing fees. Certainly you'll still have support, deployment, and possibly hosting costs; but you have those costs with closed source software as well. The difference is that you'll save the money you would have put toward licensing fees and now you have that to put toward implementation and support costs. Whereas if you have a tight budget, and have to pay licensing fees, you might just be forced into a "do it yourself" support role. And in the end, at 2pm on Friday when the server goes down, isn't it nice to know that you still have the funds to pay the experts to get you back up and running again?

JT Smith is a renowned open source guru and the president of Plain Black, the developer and distributor of the WebGUI Content Engine. He speaks internationally on topics related to Web content management.

Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.

References show all

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Users posting comments agree to the CIO comments policy.
Login or register to link comments to your user profile, or you may also post a comment without being logged in.
Related Coverage
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Tags: openoffice, sugarCRM, ubuntu, WebGUI
Latest Blog Posts
Whitepapers
  • Configuration, Not Coding
    For years, many support teams have been hamstrung by their traditional service desk platforms, which require complex, time-consuming coding for virtually every aspect of customisation. This paper can show how organisations can complete their initial deployments quickly, easily and adapt efficiently to the evolving needs of the business with Nimsoft Service Desk.
    Learn more »
  • Eight threats your antivirus won’t stop - Why you need endpoint security
    News headlines are a constant reminder that malware attacks and data loss are on the rise. High-profile incidents that make big news might seem out of the ordinary. Yet businesses of every size face similar risks in the everyday acts of using digital technology and the Internet for legitimate purposes. This paper outlines eight common threats that traditional antivirus alone won’t stop, and explains how to protect your organisation using endpoint security.
    Learn more »
  • Risk management: ensuring the security of your hosted information
    Organisations of all sizes are becoming victims to cybercriminals, data breaches, information theft and security risks. But before you go out and spend a fortune on security software, solutions and consultants, the starting point is to identify and measure your business’s exposure to those risks. In this whitepaper, “Exploring, Identifying and Measuring” risk, we examine how to identify risk and share an approach for identifying and measuring risk in your organisation.
    Learn more »
All whitepapers
rhs_login_lockGet exclusive access to Invitation only events CIO, reports & analysis.
Recent comments