We've done a huge migration over to free software here and it's been a huge success. BUT - you have to do it very slowly. Start with OpenOffice - then move from there 6 months later. OpenOffice really is a no-brainer. You'd be nuts NOT to use it.

Don't even think about Ubuntu unless your IT admins know it backwards (most do) and have done months of testing (most don't).

We went down the Ubuntu path for about half the company after 1 year of Openoffice, Thunderbird an Firefox on Windows. Once everyone was used to those three apps moving to Ubuntu was easy. If we had rushed, it would have been a total disaster.

Anyway, so far so good! Less IT hassles, no viruses, less maintenance and we're saving loads of cash.

It's not for everyone. Microsoft do make great products and will continue to do so but the free stuff is good too and does the same job for less. Just make sure you do your homework first.

It is always interesting to see only Linux in cost comparisons, when Solaris is also free.

In fact, if you buy Hardware from Sun and run Solaris, support is still cheaper than buying Redhat only support.

Oh and btw, most of Sun's Software stack (opesolaris, mysql, glassfish etc.)is now open source software and you only pay for support if you need it.

Disclaimer: I'm not working for Sun or a Sun Partner.

I definitely think the tighter economy will drive more people to free open source solutions. I don't believe everyone will suddenly convert to this technology but I do believe it will bring great exposure to these alternative products.

One thing that needs to end is the discrimination against products just because they are free and "open source". Thanks for standing up for these types of products JT and I'm glad you could provide specific examples in your article.

As a SugarCRM customisation and integration specialist (http://www.thesugarrefinery.com), we're definitely seeing a rise in customers adopting the solution since the beginning of the economic problems.

In the UK in particular, open source adoption has been slow. But now, IT managers are being forced to look at ways of reducing costs. Choosing a solution such as SugarCRM which is a very stable and mature product just makes sense.

You got one thing backwards, JT:

"Open source applications have one thing that their closed-source brethren don't have: licensing fees."

That should read: "Open source applications don't have one thing that their closed-source brethren have: licensing fees."

Typo fixed, thanks!

I would also like to mention the Scalix email server. This is a great competitor of Exchange. Check it out at http://scalix.com. There is a community edition that is free and would work great for most small businesses (really small). I have heard their support is great as well and they have a strong online forum.

This is not true, ciould be the software is free (that sme of the times is not true either) but all the costs associated with that is a huge amount of money. So if you want spend more.. go ahead and put "free" sofware.

Yup. Now is the time for Enterprise to seriously consider open source apps (BPMM, CRM,ERP,BI etc) with the consideration to do more using less.Adoption rate of open source for enterprise in Asia has been encouraging and we definitely look forward to more interest in this time.http://www.izeno.com.sg 

Very informative post.
I must mention here cyn.in as SharePoint replacement and more other alternatives can be found on http://ostatic.com/