Sunday Business Post - Computers in Business Magazine - June 7th 2009
Ten popular commercial open source applications...
Alfresco
Alfresco is an open source enterprise content management system, which includes content management functionality, along with collaboration and interoperability tools, and a menu of services and training options. It is available in community (free) and enterprise (paid-for) versions.
Canonical / Ubuntu
Canonical is the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu, a communitybased operating system based on the original Linux open source OS. The company offers paid-for 24/7 support and professional services, engineering services, and hardware and software certification around the Ubuntu system, which itself is free to download and use.
JasperSoft
JasperSoft's open source business intelligence suite includes reporting, analytics and integration tools for SMEs. It's available in either standalone or SaaS editions, and offered in community (free) and enterprise (paid-for) versions.
Liferay
Liferay Portal is an enterprise open source portal framework, offering integrated web publishing and content management, an enterprise service bus and SOA for application integration, and compatibility with all major IT infrastructures. The standard edition can be downloaded free, the paid-for enterprise version comes with support, training and services.
Magento
Magento is an open source enterprise-grade eCommerce application for managing online stores, which includes marketing and catalogue management tools. The community version is free, while the paid-for version with extra functionality, services and support starts at $8,900.
MySQL
MySQL is the world's most popular open source database. It's free to download and use, and many companies (including Sun, which ownsMySQL) offer a range of paid-for support and services - Sun's MySQL Enterprise Server and Production Support product costs $599.
Onepoint
Onepoint's open source project management software integrates project planning, controlling, monitoring and reporting into a single web 2.0-based project leadership software solution for project-oriented companies. Onepoint Project 8.1 for a single user costs €149, while five-user versions cost €1,499. Meanwhile, larger enterprise solutions are costed on a peruser basis.
Openbravo
Openbravo is a fully functional open source integrated web-based open source enterprise resource management (ERP) system, with procurement, financial, reporting, sales and project management and many other modules. SME users pay €1,500 plus €400-€500 per concurrent user, while the enterprise edition costs €500-€700 per concurrent user.
Red Hat
Red Hat provides Linuxbased operating system software along with applications, management, and middleware solutions.The basic subscription to Red Hat Enterprise Linux costs $349 and offerings range up to the premium Subscription (24/7 phone support, web support, unlimited incidents) at $2,499.
Sugar CRM
Sugar CRM is the world's largest provider of commercial open source customer relationship management (CRM) software. Sugar Express costs $499 for one to five users, while the Sugar Enterprise edition is $600 per user.
This list was a panel for a longer piece I wrote for CIB looking at the increasing availability of business-ready open source applications. Read the article on the Sunday Business Post website by clicking here.
Monday 15 June 2009
Trusting open source
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Great article and last March we published a brief note about OS on our news page (http://www.kalatechnology.com/news.html).
ReplyDeleteWe are firm believers in the availability of Freeware/OS and Dermot articles like yours will bring it to a wider audience which can only lead to enhance the way people/companies can do business without incurring large costs. As mentioned in our news article, software updates are becoming as bad as having to change your car every 2 years for the latest model, when there is no need to change.
13/03/2009
Why do you upgrade your MS office systems every time there is a new release?
Is it a bit like, oh I have to have that new model of car because my older model will depreciate quicker - so what.
What great new whizz features are you or your staff using in MS Office 2007 than they didn't have in MS Office 2000. I can bet that the majority of users don't even have the time to even learn about the new features !
What is in it for you, less money in your bank account as you fork out for new releases that you won't even need but have to have or else no support.
Enter Open Source and it's FREE
It's completely free, available for all main-stream operating systems and can be used for any purpose: personal, private or commercial. You can install the same copy on as many computers as you want and give away unlimited copies to your friends. It is the pinnacle of Open Source software - and absolutely worth a try for any business looking to cut costs. Download available at www.openoffice.org
So the next time your staff come looking for €10,000 (or more) to upgrade their version of MS Office, say, hey I remember reading an article on Open Source freeware and it does exactly what it says on the tin - FREE!