Today, I am going to talk about reducing software product and subscription costs using free alternatives to proprietary software solutions.

Did you know that there are open technology alternatives that rival industry leading software solutions? You can get no cost business applications to replace expensive proprietary solutions, or use free software stack components such as feature rich database servers, best in class web servers, high performance application servers, and superior reliability operating systems.

Open technology solutions are used by a many companies these days, in the form of software components, business applications, in the cloud, or with hosted services. This technology is developed by a large community of "interested" parties, often by companies with large revenues, who want to have software tools available to them without restrictions and high costs associated with the proprietary solutions. For example, Oracle® has been one of the leading contributers to Red Hat® Linux® over the years, and Google® is one of the leading consumers of several Linux® and Apache Foundation® free software products. So, these tools are not just for small companies looking to try something new; they are widespread throughout the IT industry and utilized by companies of all sizes.

You may want to consider migrating an existing application to open technology, or using an open business application for your next new project. Even if you have a requirement for a proprietary application, you may be able to use free software components such as a web or database server running on an open source operating system to cut costs in the software stack.

Sometimes working with open technology requires specialized skills, or learning a new system. To avoid training your own staff, you could consider working with a consulting company that has this expertise, like eCorpSys, to augment your technology skill set. There are a number of options to implement open technology at your company, contact us to learn more about eCorpSys Open Technology Solutions.

Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle, Red Hat is a registered trademark of Red Hat, Inc., Google is a registered trademark of registered Google, Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds, Apache and the the Apache Foundation are registered trademarks of the Apache Foundation.