There are lots of ways for your business to save money, no matter what size it is. We’re small business owners ourselves, so we know first-hand what you or your company may be going through.
Your business needs proper software and technology in order to function most effectively, however don’t get into the mindset that you “have” to purchase a full Oracle license to run a small database, or that you “have” to purchase Vignette in order to have a dynamically-powered website. There are tons of tech-alternatives out there that may fit your need without bursting your budget. Note: These recommendations are in no way tied to product endorsements or advertising. We just wanted to give you some ideas of how to save your company’s money — keep in mind that these solutions may not fit your business needs, so your mileage may vary.
Database
If you run a small ecommerce website where you don’t have thousands and thousands of people simultaneously querying the database, why not switch to MySQL? For small- to medium-sized databases it performs just as well as the big guys, but at a fraction of the cost. And by fraction, I mean it’s free. It still runs standard SQL, so you don’t need to learn anything proprietary to use it.
OS and Web Server
If your company isn’t neck deep into ASP or .NET development, why not move to Linux? If you have a small tech team, and performance and stability is at the front of your mind (and what else would be?), then you may be able to save your company money by moving to an open source operating system. No more expensive product upgrades, no more serial number nightmares, no more huge security holes or nasty viruses (for the most part). Now that you’re running Linux, you can move over to Apache and bask in it’s warm, beautiful glow. Apache runs the world’s largest websites, so I’m sure that it’s good enough for yours. It’s amazingly stable and extensible, and you’d be hard-pressed to find something you want to do with it that’s not already documented on the internet somewhere.
Content Management
D. Keith Robinson moved an entire hospital’s intranet to MovableType — software that is traditionally thought of as a “weblog tool”. Nope, not anymore. You can use weblog software (such as the free and open-source WordPress, among others) to power your entire company’s website. Distributed authorship, workflow publishing, version control, and easy updating without shelling out tens of thousands of dollars for commercial content management systems. Companies are making the switch to low-cost solutions such as MovableType and WordPress everyday, so why not give it a shot?
Phone Calls
The Business Logs team is physically separated — Paul’s in Florida, Matthew’s in Illinois, and I’m in Virginia (for now). Sometimes chatrooms just aren’t enough, so instead of killing our cellphone bills, we just fire up iChat, hook up an Audio connection, and chat away. Now all you pay is the cost of an internet connection, and you can have real-time voice conversations with anyone in the world for free.
These are just a few tips for saving money, they may not work for you, but on the other hand they may save you thousands of dollars.
About Mike Rundle
Mike –
I am somewhat surprised at the way you’ve presented this. That is, if system A is not serving your purpose, why not switch to system B to save money.
If the world were only so simple…
On the surface, moving from A to B seems as the logical decision. However, you have left off the costs and potential logistical nightmares of implementaton and changeover – which may end up costing an organization plenty of benjamins if done incorrectly.
Mark, I couldn’t agree more.
This post doesn’t touch on any of the surrounding environmental or fiscal factors associated with the tech migration — it is just meant to enlighten some small companies who may not realize that their enterprise class system doesn’t need to be so “enterprise class” in order for them to still do business.
I’ve worked for small companies who use Microsoft Sharepoint for little more than posting images to each other, but still bought the full-on license for it because they thought it was necessary. Stuff like that happens everyday to people who are misinformed and overmarketed by the Big Guns who just want you to buy their software. It’s a shame that more consulting agencies don’t try and use lower-cost alternatives when choosing what technology to implement — but as they say — money is money, and everybody needs it.
I could post all day about Technology Adoption Cycles and Needs Assessment Evaluations but I think I’ll save that for my own weblog :)
Interesting point, Mike. However, if you have already several MS Certified SysAdmins in your team administrating the whole “MS-Win-only” server-infrastructure, why not stay there?
(…Okay, there may be reasons to switch… good reasons, in fact… But just read on for a second…)
Apache is available for Windows as well, shipping in a package called WAMPP or XAMPP sometimes. You could use the inexpensive power of Apache w/o re-educating your admins. And by that PHP and MySQL follows…
When I said:
I really meant “if all your eggs aren’t nested in a Microsoft basket”. The whole goal IMO is to save your company money, not force you to spend more of it. If your team of MCSE engineers is doing the job for you, then hey, don’t rock the cradle. If it ain’t broke…
The Apache issue on Windows always seems to be a controversial one. Yup it works, but is it as stable and reliable as its Linux counterpart? I for one have never used Apache running on a Windows box so I’m not one to say either way. However I’m sure there are some *nix geniuses out there who would love to speak up on this issue :)
I think that Consulting companys may think that running his solutions under “free” software can make the client step down the value of them.
Some clients may think “free software=free solution” and that is not the point.
And of course, almost every CEO in the world thinks Microsoft is the only way to do IT. For them, the rule is “free soft=bad soft-amateur soft”. And I think that we can blame Microsoft for that.
Interesting. I would think an in-depth discussion of business systems analysis would be much more relevant here than on a personal site.
…break it. This seems to be the opinion of many companies, in my view. Apache/Linux is of course the better choice, because this is where it originated from. To be honest, I wouldn’t use an IIS on Linux.
However, instead of spending for Linux-courses, a WAMPP could offer an inexpensive first step.
(I know, all is about first steps…)
Great read! I do however think Textpattern deserves a mention along side WordPress and MovableType.
Mike,
We installed Apache on one of our MS servers last year as the boss had bought some product that only worked with it as the web server (funny how open source falls prey to the same lockout/lockdown mentality as proprietary software, eh?)
Our Apache instance has been quite happily co-existing with IIS, MS SQL Server, FileMaker and two versions of the ASP.NET framework. Only took about an hour to configure and has worked flawlessly since
That aside, I think your post is a little too simplistic to be valuable to anyone
Sure, you don’t need to learn any proprietary database language to run MySQL, but you still have to learn how to use the database itself. A partner of mine has twenty-something years in databases and he is continually frustrated by MySQL. And I’m not even sure you should be suggesting that that it is free for a commerical enterprise (regardless of how small the site). MySQL AB strongly recommend that all commercial organisations should purchase a commercial license, which while not as expensive as MS SQL Server or Oracle can still mount up to serious money at $495 a server
Another point is that Linux is not definitely cheaper than Windows. That depends greatly on support and ease of use. You can’t simply switch from one OS to another. If you have a bunch of Windows geeks, most will know next to nothing about Linux. Most Linux geeks know even less about Windows, than their Windows counterparts know about Linux. So where do you get your team from? (This is where all the folks who can use whateverOS on a hardcore level shout at me, but think about how many people you know with your own abilities before you do, okay?)
And as others mentioned, there are other solutions you could have suggested for CMS. And where are the equivalents for iChat? Given your assumption that many businesses would be using MS products, how would they use iChat anyway?
Concerning CMS, I would add Typo3 a free Open Source content management system for enterprise.
http://typo3.com/ />
It offers amazing results to manage content.
Not to sound like a staunch Windows guy, but there is one random thing that may cost a company more to switch over to Linux: Hiring Unix/Linux professionals costs more. I read a report saying that it’s around 30,000 extra salary for Unix/Linux experts.
To comment about how this article isn’t “in depth” enough, certainly this post will help more with new businesses, as it explains how to keep the initial investment cost down. Businesses will have to look at the cost of “switching” over to determine what the total cost is in restructuring, but the whole point is that they should be keeping their eyes open to new options. The status quo isn’t always the best way, as over time most things get bloated and inefficient.
For years I have preached pretty mcuh the same thing you mentioned in this article. The cost effectiveness of getting more for your money, while actually paying nothing.
First off Linux, its free, its stable, it will support all the hardware you need for a server. You had the client at free.
Apache, the strongest web server ever created not only in my opinion, but in the opinion of many other experts. It comes packaged with Linux, thus it is free. If it is not included with your distribution you can download it for free.
MySQL as you said (I’m not too deep into databases, but mySQL has always been what I have used), once again the cost is free.
I have yet to find a content management system that is not free that I like better than the free open source ones, not to say that there are not good CMS that cost money, yet I think opensource/freeware is typically better. Your motivation is not to increase the profit, it is to better the product becuase of the passion and dedication.
Communication…if you’re not on a Mac such as these bragging jerks who feel the need to rub it in the face of us PC using Mac wannabes, why not check out Skype.
Great post Mike… but one comment.
While many IT professionals would agree that Linux/Apache is more secure than Windows/IIS, I feel that when a Linux/Apache security hole *does* come out, it can be harder to patch.
With Windows, you Windows Update, reboot, and you’re set. If you’re halfway decent, you can set them to auto-download, have a SUS server, etc. With Linux, it’s more complicated.
Now, maybe I’m missing something… I don’t play with production servers very often.
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