Some forward-thinking companies are already giving employees more freedom to pick mobile phones, computers and applications for work—in some cases, they're even giving workers allowances to spend on outfitting themselves. The result, they've found, is more-productive employees. There's a reason professional chefs bring their own knives to work, rather than using a dull set of blades lying around the kitchen.

I actually found something usefull at "The Shack" today. Go figure.

Just testing some Posterous-ness....

 

Introduction

Open source alternatives to expensive licensed products can save you a bundle. In this "Saving money with open source" series, learn about three open source options for your operating system, office application suite, and groupware server:

• Part 1 reviews Ubuntu, a very capable and usable open source operating system that can easily provide the basis for your desktop or server infrastructure.
• This article explores the features and functions of the OpenOffice application suite, and how it compares to Microsoft® Office®.
• In Part 3, learn about OpenChange, which provides a portable open source implementation of Microsoft Exchange Server and Exchange protocols. Exchange is a groupware server designed to work with Microsoft Outlook, and provides features such as a messaging server, shared calendars, contact databases, public folders, notes, and tasks.

On the desktop, the operating system and environment are less important than the applications that support the main operating functions for your office. Your business drives your application requirements, but most businesses will also use an office suite, such as OpenOffice, to support their core operations.

The OpenOffice suite is open source, freely available, and completely compatible with a wide range of different office suites, including Microsoft Office. It's a compatible product, both in terms of file readability and usage, and you can try out OpenOffice with no barriers.

A number of councils in the United Kingdom, including Birmingham and Bristol, have moved to OpenOffice to save money. When comparing the cost of commercial licenses for 5,500 desktops against the cost of OpenOffice, there's a clear winner.

You can migrate to OpenOffice while keeping complete compatibility with your previous installation. Phased migrations are possible, such as that carried out by Banco do Brasil in 2005, which moved to OpenOffice and installed it on 75,000 workstations.

Download the source code to examine the OpenOffice content or download pre-compiled binary packages. They install the same way as any package on their corresponding platform and include the full range of applications and functions on all supported platforms.

Testing Posterous