Is it really possible to buy a computer and not end up spending hundreds on extra software?
Yes, is the emphatic answer. For whatever business need you can name, there’s almost certainly a freeware version that can do the job. Some packages do everything you ask of them, others may have some functions disabled that require a relatively low cost subscription. Chances are, though, you will probably get away with shelling out zero most of the time.
Leaving Linux and the question of operating systems aside for now (this was covered extensively in an in-depth series recently), we will assume most businesses are running on the Windows platform. Let’s see what alternative downloadable goodies await.
Web browsers
Firefox from Mozilla is kicking, and gets better all the time. Undisputably, the top alternative to Explorer at the moment, but check out Google’s Chrome Beta, Apple’s Safari and Opera too.
Email
Mozilla Thunderbird is excellent. Opera users, meanwhile, (see above) have a built-in email client. Also coming highly recommended are Spicebird, Ymail, an email client you can run from a memory stick, and Courier email, an update of the hugely popular Calypso email software.
All of these suppose the user wishes to keep their downloaded email locally. The new generation of web-based email applications allow users to aggregate all their messages into one location that’s accessible from anywhere. Leading the way here, ironically, is Windows Live. Other than a just announced email aggregation tool announced by AOL, there’s very few free applications to touch Windows Live at the moment. Apple’s offering, MobileMe is $99 per year. But a free beta application from fuser.com claims to be a new type of aggregation service to manage all online communications from POP3 email to webmail, blogs and networking sites.
‘Office’-type suites
The daddy is OpenOffice, but not the only choice. IBM was back on form with the release last year of Lotus Symphony, a beta version suite of word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation applications that IBM shipped as part of Lotus 8.
Anti-virus
By general consensus the best two free anti-virus packages around are AVG Anti-Virus Free and Avira.
Accounts
Free bookkeeping packages are plentiful, so highlighting one is subjective. It may be necessary to download a few and experiment to find the application that best suits individual business needs. A good place to start for small to micro-sized businesses is the Open Source programme, GnuCash. It allows the tracking of bank accounts, income, expenditure, expenses etc., and has features to enable double-entry accounting, the recording of customers, jobs, invoices, vendors and the generation of reports and graphs, financial calculations and transaction matching.
Website editing
Again, there is an embarrassment of riches here. Editing and building your own website is not a biggie these days, and a subject worthy of an article of its own. (Check back soon on that one.) Meantime, it’s worthwhile taking a good look at NVU, an easy to learn what-you-see-is-what-you-get web editor. Definitely a good, fast introduction to page editing.
File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
NVU includes a built-in file transfer system, but you may prefer the flexibility of a standalone product that will do everything you need. This is another area where there are literally hundreds of freeware packages to choose from. Try out a few for yourself, but start with Filezilla, a well featured, fast and reliable piece of software that doesn’t require much, if any, trawling through help to figure out.
Business intelligence
Perhaps unsurprisingly given the complexity involved there isn’t a lot of competition in this freeware niche. The only one dig up-able is an application offered by pentaho.com that they understandably bill as the “world’s first open source, best-in-class solution for enterprise Business Intelligence (BI).” However, a thorough study of the site is to be recommended as the Pentaho BI Platform comprises various components for data integration, analysis, reporting and data mining that can be used collectively as a suite or picked and mixed.
