Five ways to slash costs: how open source can save your business Version Author Date 0.4 Steve Rayson and Mark Aberdour 10 July 2008 Contents : .............................................................. Introduction: open source for changing times .............................................................. 1 nobusiness................................ .............................................................. Why open source is a no-brainer for business.............................................................. 2 ................................................................ ............................................................... What does ‘free’ mean? ............................................................................................... 3 ................................................................ ......................................................... It’s free – what’s the catch? ......................................................................................... 4 Software Helping you get the most from open source: Software as a Service (SaaS) .................. 5 ....................................................... Five ways to save with free and open source tools ....................................................... 6 ........................................... Get the benefits today: How Kineo Open Source can help ........................................... 16 Introduction: open source for changing times Running a business means controlling costs. Never more so than in challenging times like these. But there’s a new way now. The rise of free and open source software means the cost base of the small to medium enterprise should never be the same again. The development of the internet and in particular the growth of software as a service (or ‘SaaS’) means that small to medium businesses can use best in class solutions at very low cost. These solutions include customer relationship management, website content management, telephony, information management, staff online learning and personal productivity tools. This guide explores • Why open source is a no-brainer for business • What does ‘free’ mean? An explanation of how it works • Five cost areas where open source can make a big impact • How to get started: Kineo Open Source  Kineo 2008 – Five ways to slash costs: how open source can save your business This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License 1 noWhy open source is a no - brainer for business Let’s start with the business case for open source. It’s pretty simple: Huge software cost saving Let’s take it as a given that you face costs in your business in areas such as telephony, customer relationship management, and website development, among others. Let’s also take it as a given that software makes a huge difference to your people’s productivity in these areas and hence generates cost savings. So what if that software was better supported than the commercial software you’re currently using, with no licence fees? That’s what open source delivers. Open source is collaboratively developed software that is shared with no license fees. People get together, build something, then give it away, and provide access to the source code, so that anyone can contribute ideas for its continued improvement and development. So instead of the people on the payroll of a software company working on it, a huge (and voluntary) developer community around the world is making the software better, and keeping it free. Doesn’t sound very businesslike? IBM, Google and many others would disagree. We are way beyond the tipping point for open source in organizations: “Organizations are saving millions of dollars on IT by using open source software. In 2004, open source software saved large companies (with annual revenue of over $1 billion) an average of $3.3 million. Medium-sized companies (between $50 million and $1 billion in annual revenue) saved an average $1.1 million. Firms with revenues under $50 million saved an average $520,000.” Walli, S., Gynn, D., Rotz, B. V. The Growth of Open Source Software in Organizations: A Report. If you’re running a small to medium business, and you’re looking to improve productivity and reduce costs, you’ve got to look at open source. You don’t need to be a geek to get it Open Source software was previously difficult for small business to implement. It often involved downloading software, setting up a server and a high degree of technical skills. The labour skills and the effort required started to cut quite deeply into the potential savings. However, that has all changed with the advent of software as a service (SaaS) and a growing number of specialized open source SaaS providers. SaaS has been pioneered by service providers such as Salesforce.com (which isn’t open source), and means the software resides on a provider’s servers and they take care of all technical issues for an annual fee. They’re not licensing the software – it’s free. They’re providing you with a secure hosted and supported service to get you the software (by they, we mean Kineo Open Source - but more about that later).  Kineo 2008 – Five ways to slash costs: how open source can save your business This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License 2 Thus for a very low monthly fee you can have your own version of say Sugar CRM (which is almost identical to Salesforce, and is open source) software set up and ready to use within days, or even hours. No complex install, no heavy investment in servers, no technical know-how required. So that’s the business case (we said it was short). Now let’s take a quick look at what open source means and five areas where it can take a sledgehammer to your cost base. What does ‘free’ mean? If you start looking for free software, you’re going to run into a few common terms. It’s worth knowing the differences between them. Freeware Freeware is commonly used for software tools and packages which permit redistribution, but not modification (their source code is not available). The tools though can be downloaded and used without charge. Open source Open Source software is free to download and use but in addition the source code is available to anyone to edit and develop further under varying terms and conditions. Hence you have huge communities of developers contributing to the code and making improvements. It is possible for small companies to download and install open source software, and set it up without paying anything at all for the software. There are costs of course – server space, effort to understand and install the software, and ongoing support. Hence the rise of Open Source SaaS – more on this later. Who uses free and open source software? The short answer is nearly everyone. The Open University operates Moodle, the open source Learning Management System, for nearly 200,000 students. Google runs all of its servers on Linux, the open source operating system. Organisations like Cable&Wireless use Joomla (a free website development tool) and BT now offers Sugar as its Customer Relationship Management tool to all of its business clients. Huge and respected organisations have seen the benefit and made very public announcements to open source. Why wouldn’t they? Shareholders love it,  Kineo 2008 – Five ways to slash costs: how open source can save your business This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License 3 It’s free – what’s the catch? There’s still some nervousness about open source. You may face it in your own organization when it comes to convincing others to take it forward. To help them, and you, here are some common fear factors - and why you don’t need to be scared fear Open source fear factor “What happens if the tool just goes away? If there’s no commercial organization in charge, couldn’t it just stop being supported? Don’t be scared That’s a lot less likely to happen with open source than with most software you’re using, which – let’s face it – will end up being discontinued at some point due to acquisition or upgrade. Sure, some open source products are ‘owned’ by a company who does the bulk of development, but with open source the code is ultimately owned by everyone and no-one – and that’s much safer. This is one myth where the reverse is actually true. Just ask NATO, the US Department of Defence or NASA, who are all big advocates of open source. The fact is, without full access to the source code, a full security audit is impossible, which makes closed source code much less secure. With high profile examples of enterprise applications which contained Trojan code or ‘back doors’ for many years before they were detected, security is one area where you can trust open source. Actually no. With code being reviewed and interfaces tested by far more people than a proprietary software house could even afford or find, bugs are found and fixed quickly. Or, in open source nerd-speak: Many eyes make all bugs shallow. Additionally, due to the logistics of having developers distributed around the world working out of the same code repository, release management and version control is handled far more rigorously in open source than in most proprietary software companies. While interim releases come more rapidly, great care is taken to release stable versions at key milestones. Actually some things really are free. The fact is, there are absolutely no licence costs for open source, it is freely available for all to download. But yes, there are costs involved – the effort of reviewing and selecting tools, to start with. Then there are labour costs to install, host, train and support users and upgrade to new versions (the same as you’d expect for commercial software). But small to medium businesses don’t need to go it alone here. Companies like Kineo Open Source provide leading open source tools on a secure and hosted platform with all the services business needs, so that plugging into open source is easy and extremely cost effective “What about security? Sounds like it might be prone to viruses and hacks, who knows what’s in that code? “if anyone can change the code, isn’t it inherently unstable? How do I know my version is going to run? “Nothing’s really free is it – aren’t there costs to install, host and support it.  Kineo 2008 – Five ways to slash costs: how open source can save your business This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License 4 Helping you get the most from open source: Software as a Service (SaaS) Software as a Service (SaaS) is a model of software deployment where an application is hosted as a service provided to customers across the Internet. By eliminating the need to install and run the application on the customer's own computer, SaaS alleviates the burden of software maintenance, ongoing operation and support from the customer. Using SaaS also can reduce the up-front expense as it is paid for on a monthly or annual basis. A good example of commercial SaaS is Salesforce.com which is a leading Customer Relationship Management Tool. Before salesforce.com, the standard CRM package was a software package you’d buy and install locally. Running it on multiple machines, accessing it remotely, syncing data was all painful. But Salesforce moved the industry into an SaaS model with its commercial customer relationship management software which is available to customers for a monthly fee. This is not free or open source software and the pricing includes a software licence fee. The ease of access was a major advance – Salesforce built a successful business on the back of the advertising slogan ‘No Software!’. Free and open source software is now available on an SaaS basis – think Salesforce without the software licence fee. For example, Sugar CRM is customer relationship management software which is completely free and does practically everything that Salesforce can. A number of companies including Kineo Open Source offer this CRM software on an SaaS basis. The fee for open source software on a SaaS basis tends to be lower than that for commercial software as there is no licence fee element. Thus you can have your very own CRM system with robust functionality to manage all client contacts, newsletters, marketing campaigns from as little as £750 which will buy you hosting and support for a year. More importantly your Sugar CRM system can be set up and operating within a few days. Now that we’ve explained the benefits and the key aspects of freeware and open source, let’s look at five key business areas where they can make a huge impact.  Kineo 2008 – Five ways to slash costs: how open source can save your business This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License 5 Five ways to save with free and open source tools Telephony - Skype Business benefit: Most businesses spend more than they want to on phone calls. Making fewer calls is not the answer. Making them for free would help – and that’s what Skype does. What is it? Still using landlines? How 20th century… Skype use Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) to allow you to make free calls to other Skype users and very low cost calls to landlines across the world. You can also hold free conference and video calls using Skype. Skype has over 53 million registered users across the world, with the software available for a multitude of systems including Windows, Mac OS, Linux and even portable devices. A huge number of businesses (including Kineo) have made it the standard way of making landline calls both internally and with customers. Skype works in a number of ways: you can "call" another computer if the user is online or you can make calls to phones as normal telephone calls. SkypeOut (the landline dialling service) isn't just restricted to local or national calls, either. International rates are also provided on the Skype website and these look very reasonable compared to the British telecom rates. Skype's system enables you to call a range of countries using their unified rate (€ 0.017 per minute) compared to BT's crunching £0.05 per minute on their BT Together plan (all the phone companies are offering or looking similar VOIP services), though you have to pre-buy credit. You can still surf the web at the same time as making or receiving a call with any disruption. Using large amounts of bandwidth when downloading from the web can cause your calls to break up, though. Skype really requires a broadband connection to work properly. Trying to have a conversation on dialup is going to have an adverse effect on sound quality. It's also advisable, if you're planning on using Skype a lot, to buy an integrated headphone/microphone headset. When using a standard speaker/microphone set up, the sound coming out of your speakers can often be rebroadcast to your caller. Get the most from it: Bring your friends: you can hold conference calls using Skype with up to 10 people. This can really save the small business a fortune when you consider rates for renting conference call lines. It’s  Kineo 2008 – Five ways to slash costs: how open source can save your business This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License 6 really easy to run these calls. Kineo Open Source can talk you through it: Skype us on kineoopensource. Swap information during the call - If you need to swap information to the other computer user in the middle of a call, you can also use Skype's built-in instant messaging (IM) client which works like a basic MSN Messenger. More immediate than email. Never dial international from your landline again: if you’re making international phone calls, Skype really is a no-brainer. The savings are immense - you can call landlines for extremely low rates, or if you get your client or colleagues onto Skype too, the whole thing is free. Take it further You can download Skype for free at www.skype.com. Kineo Open Source can provide training and support around Skype usage for you and your team, Contact kineopopensource on Skype or go to www.kineoopensource.com for more information. business  Kineo 2008 – Five ways to slash costs: how open source can save your business This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License 7 Website Creation and Content Management – Joomla Business benefit: For most business, a web presence is a must-have. But traditionally the software required has been a major expense, and the maintenance costs are like a slot machine. But with Joomla, You can build and maintain a sophisticated website using a free open source web content management system. You can also use components such as OS Commerce to create your own online e-commerce services. What software fee? What is it? Joomla is an award-winning Content Management System (CMS) that will help you build websites and other powerful online applications. Joomla is an open source solution that is freely available to everybody. Joomla is used all over the world to power everything from simple, personal homepages to complex corporate web applications. Applications include: • • • • • • • • Corporate websites Online commerce Small business websites Non-profit and organizational websites Government applications Corporate intranets and extranets Community-based portals Magazines and newspapers Joomla can be used to easily manage every aspect of your website, from adding content and images to updating a product catalog or taking online reservations. Kineo Open Source’s own website is a Joomla site. most Make the most of it: Build on the basics: Joomla has a large and growing range of plug-ins that can really evolve your site. Look out for the many Joomla components built by the community including form applications, banner management, calendars, payment systems and many more. Over 3,000 more, to be precise, at http://extensions.joomla.org/ Take it further You can download Joomla at www.joomla.org Kineo Open Source can provide - Joomla install and support services if you want it on your own server - Hosting and support on our secure servers  Kineo 2008 – Five ways to slash costs: how open source can save your business This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License 8 - Joomla design and site development Joomla training www.kineoopensource.com (Built in Joomla, of course…)  Kineo 2008 – Five ways to slash costs: how open source can save your business This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License 9 Customer relationship management system - Sugar CRM Business benefit: Sales team management made cost effective. If you’re using Saleforce, take a deep breath then have a look at this….. Sugar CRM is a free way of tracking all of your customer data to ensure your sales team are productive and on target. What is it? Sugar CRM is a complete customer relationship management system to help you identify, track and acquire customers. It enables you to keep details on all your customers and all the contact you have with them. Sugar CRM functionality includes: Client and contact database Lead, Opportunity and Account Management Team Management and Sales Forecasting Campaign Management, Email Marketing Case Management and Incident Tracking Activity, Calendar, and Project Management Microsoft Outlook Integration Mobile Support Workflow Management Sugar CRM also has great reporting features including advanced Reporting across all Sugar modules and customizable Dashboards. Make the most of it: Integrate Sugar with your Outlook so you can add clients to the Sugar CRM database easily from Outlook. Where can you get it http://sourceforge.net/projects/sugarcrm it Take it further: Kineo Open Source can host, train and support your team with: • Installation and configuration services  Kineo 2008 – Five ways to slash costs: how open source can save your business This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License 10 • • • • • • • • Customisation using bespoke or open source extensions Theme development services Free and unlimited professional support from our service desk specialists Free upgrades to major, compatible version releases Administrator training Administrator support End user manuals lockNo vendor lock-in – you are free to export your Sugar database to another vendor’s Sugar or your own, at any time. www.kineoopensource.com save  Kineo 2008 – Five ways to slash costs: how open source can save your business This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License 11 Staff Training & Development – Moodle Business benefit: Train and communicate with your staff more efficiently, with a free Learning Management System Training costs are part of every business. But the management and tracking of training doesn’t have to add more costs. With Moodle you can provide online learning materials for all staff, undertake assessments and keep records for compliance purposes with Moodle, the leading open source learning management system. It provides everything you need for an online learning academy. What is it? Moodle is an open source virtual learning environment or learning management system. It allows organisations to create online learning portals and provides a vast array of functionality to allow learners to be tracked, assessed and supported. The Moodle course format allows many different learning resources to be added to any particular course. These learning resources include: • word documents • e-learning courses and modules • pdf documents • audio • video • web links Moodle itself also provides tools to create quizzes and simple html pop up web pages, so that you can create additional learning resources. Moodle also has standard modules which you can use with a course which such as: • • • • • calendar (to book workshop/event dates) discussion forum chat room RSS feeds the ability for users to create their own blogs or learning records Make the most of it: See what we’ve done with it as an example: have a look at Kineo’s Moodle demo at www.kineolearning.com/demo.  Kineo 2008 – Five ways to slash costs: how open source can save your business This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License 12 Take it further You can download Moodle for free here: http://moodle.org/ Kineo open source can support you through: • Design of a specific look and feel for your Moodle to fit with your brand • Design and development of any e-learning content you require through Kineo, the UK’s leading rapid e-learning company (www.kineo.com) • Training on how to make the most from Moodle • Technical support for Moodle • Hosting for Moodle Find out more at www.kineoopensource.com  Kineo 2008 – Five ways to slash costs: how open source can save your business This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License 13 Office Software - OpenOffice Business benefit: Who said there’s no alternative to Microsoft Office? Bill Gates, probably. But he’s stepped away – and maybe you should too. You can seriously reduce your software costs with this free alternative to Microsoft Office. What is it? OpenOffice is an office suite which includes a word processor, database, drawing tool, spreadsheet, presentation tool and mathematical function creator. Commonly when most people think of office suite they think of Microsoft Office and associated products i.e. Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Access. OpenOffice runs on Windows, Linux and Solaris, and comprises the normal range of office applications, with a word processor (Writer), spreadsheet (Calc) and presentation module (Impress) at the fore, backed up by database and drawing tools. All can import Microsoftformatted files to an impressive degree, and can be set to export in Microsoft native formats for use in mixed-suite environments. So your clients don’t need to be running MS office to read OpenOffice files. Though they might thank you for the cost saving suggestion. Make the most of it: One nice feature of OpenOffice is the “Export Directly as PDF” button. Located next to the print button on the toolbar, this button acts just like a normal save button, but it saves your document as an Adobe PDF file. If you are using Word you can install cute DF creator to do the same thing. Take it further You can download OpenOffice for free here: www.OpenOffice.org  Kineo 2008 – Five ways to slash costs: how open source can save your business This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License 14 Related Desktop software There is a great range of other free desktop software: • • • • • • Thunderbird for email, http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/products/thunderbird/ Image editing with tools such as Paint.NET and GIMP PDF Creator and Cute PDF for creating PDF documents Audacity for audio editing AVG’s anti-virus software to protect your systems Survey Software you can run staff surveys using the free service available from Survey Monkey or Lime Survey • Personal productivity: You can keep updated on the latest in your industry by gathering RSS feeds using tools such as RSS Owl Mindmapping: You can map out and brainstorm ideas using Freemind’s mind mapping software. • In a future guide, we’ll share our tips and advice on making the most of these tools too. open  Kineo 2008 – Five ways to slash costs: how open source can save your business This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License 15 Get the benefits today: How Kineo Open Source can help As this guide has shown, Open Source can deliver real benefits to business by improving productivity and cutting costs in key areas. To get the benefits of open source, many small to medium enterprises may need a trusted partner who can guide you through the options, provide help and support to get started, and make usage for your team easy through secure hosted solutions and dedicated support. At Kineo Open Source we are committed to providing organizations with competitive open source solutions and great customer service. We offer open source support services on demand, where we host and run everything for you. If you prefer to have it all in-house, we will install and set up the software in your organization on your own servers. We can also provide support and tailored services to ensure you get the maximum impact from open source software. To realise the benefits of open source for business today, contact us: www.kineoopensource.com 7 Orange Row Brighton BN1 1UQ Phone: 01273 728900 Skype ID: kineoopensource Email: info@kineoopensource.com This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.  Kineo 2008 – Five ways to slash costs: how open source can save your business This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License 16