Part 6 – Alternatives to the Norm
For my last entry in the series on Cutting IT Costs I want to talk about “alternative products”. By this I mean, alternatives to the de facto standards that most businesses would default their product choices to.
The alternatives are generally a lot cheaper or free to acquire and that can make a big difference to capital budgets. Just remember, the acquisition price isn’t always the largest part of the total cost – your business needs to evaluate how much the product is going to cost you over it’s lifetime and this calculation needs to take in deployment costs, maintenance costs (which may be charged by the vendor), management costs and support costs.
A Comparison
For example Microsoft Office is not the only option for a business these days when it comes to office productivity tools. OpenOffice (and the many flavors that are derived from its code base) is a free alternative to Microsoft Office that provides similar functionality to Word, Excel etc. It is a no brainer that it present s a significant saving per user for any business and it has all the applications you would expect. It would be unfair to say the product is functionally identical to MS Office however, and anyone who is used to specific features of MS Office may require some time to get used to the new product or the lack of a key component that they used everyday. The temporary loss of productivity needs to be considered.
Google Apps also provide tools that are free and require zero installation, however functionality compared to Microsoft offerings is limited. Then again, what do you want for free. There is the old argument that 80% of users only use 20% of the features in MS Office so for your particular needs, it may be met by Google Apps or more likely OpenOffice. I heartily recommend a pilot project to evaluate how users will get on day to day.
A big consideration for me is how you communicate and share information with suppliers or customers. If your business only ever sends out PDFs to customers and suppliers then OpenOffice could be perfect for you, but if you collaborate with other businesses and they use Microsoft apps then you have a little more work to do because OpenOffice cannot save in Office 2007 formats (though it can read them).
I definitely think both products have a place and for any company that is looking to upgrade their office suite and is tight on cash, free makes a lot of sense.
Not Free, But Better Value
I’m actually get excited by some product offerings that offer the alternative and do things in better ways and still work out cheaper. My favorite is an old one but more relevant today than ever. That is Faxing! I still cant get over that so many people want to fax and the only choice for dealing with them is still by fax. Online fax services win for me in multiple ways. Firstly, I don’t have to have a dedicated line for a fax machine (for which I use once in a blue moon), second, I don’t have to own a fax machine, third I don’t have to buy consumables for that fax machine that I don’t have and finally I am desperately trying to operate a paperless office and I scan everything. Having to print a fax out then scan and throw the paper away is sacrilege . Instead I spend $7 per month (and there are free ones) and have my faxes go to and from my inbox with no hardcopies in between. It costs much less than the phone company would charge for a second line.
Here are a few others (I am aware that there are hundreds of free applications to replace paid for versions):
1. Skype – No phone line costs, free Skype to Skype calls and you can have a “call as much as you like plan” for $1.50 per month
2. Bullzip PDF – Converts printouts to PDFs at no cost – instead of printing documents just send them to the PDF Printer object and it will save them to a folder where you can view with Acrobat Reader (less paper again)
3. Hosted Exchange – Mailboxes for around $10 per month with all the features of the server product but with none of the hassle.
Remember free isn’t always free and the important thing is that the application or tool doesn’t hinder productivity and doing business, then you may find free costs more than the Rolls Royce version.
