Itâ?'s easy to understand why you might be drawn to the allure offree software. After all, it is free and free is always a goodprice to pay. But before you plunk down your hard-earned no moneyand possibly put your business at risk, consider the following.
Most of the free software that you will find is not supported.There will be no one at the other end of the software. What doesthis mean to you and your business? It means that if you have atechnical support issue and you need help fast, that help will behard to find, if you are able to find help at all.
Some of the more popular free software does have available usersupported help groups. These are groups of users who congregateout there in Cyberspace and are sporadically available to provideassistance to others. You can always try to send an email messageto the developer if you can find the developer. But because ofits very nature as a FREE item, no one is under any obligation tohelp you with your issue, quickly or otherwise.
Itâ?'s also important that you understand the motivation behinddeveloping free software. First, there are some programmers whojust have too much time on their hands. These individuals willjust create free software to give them something to do.Programmers are notorious problem-solvers, and creating softwareis a great way to accomplish this.
Some developers create software and offer it for free out of the goodness of their heart. Hard to believe in this day and age, butit happens. And there are other programmers who get a feeling ofaltruism when they create software. They offer it for free withthe hopes that the masses will marvel at their creation.
Other software developers, notably in the Linux world, write anddistribute free software under GNU or Open Source licenses. Andsome of these packages are popular, mainstream and 100% free. Theworkhorse, Apache Server software program, is a good example ofthis.
However in the case of most windows-based free software, (exceptfor the good-hearted programmers mentioned above), there mostoften is an ulterior motive for giving software away for free.
Some free software packages have advertising engines which rotatebanner or text ads while you are using the program and, whilesome of them are quite forthright and honest about this, othersdeliver their advertising bomb through Trojan horse back doorswhich sneak onto your computer without your knowledge. In mostcases, this simply results in unwanted advertising that you haveno idea where it came from, but in other cases you could verywell end up with software thatâ?'s designed to steal yourpasswords, financial info or worse.
Some of the more popular free software for your business,including Open Office which, unbelievable as it may seem, is analmost complete free replacement for the MS-Office package,including a spread sheet and a word processor, has no stringsattached. Itâ?'s just free.
FreeCRM.com, a web-based customer relationship managementprogram, offers absolutely free fully-enabled accounts for smallbusinesses. Larger businesses, with multiple employees requiringaccess to the system, pay just a nominal fee.
So to sum this up -- hereâ?'s some free advice. If you are thinkingabout using a free software program for your small business, fireup your Internet, go to Google and look up the name of the freesoftware. You will find everything you need to know, both thegood points as well as the bad points, about that particularpackage. Then decide whether itâ?'s right for your needs.
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