This book provides a comprehensive overview on how small business can utilize IT to solve the day-to-day business problems. Since the book was published, there are many updates and releases to the Open Source packages. Please check the mutual compatibility of the Open Source packages before installing for your business.

Recent On-Demand Web Applications off-load the tedious compatibility, security, and maintenance tasks off the small business. For a small monthly service charge, your firm can get the back-office IT running in a few day or even a few hours.

Be careful about your business data format though. Proprietary data format can be very costly for upgrades and hard to scale up as your business grows. That is one of the major reasons for enterprise to switch from proprietary data format to Open Source data formats.

Another reason to switch from proprietary tools to Open Source tools is the freedom to tailor the tool for your business process. We've seen many business changing their competetive business process to fit the "off-the-shelf" proprietary tool and struggling to maintain the business' competetive edge.

A 300-year-old Japanese company selling popular Saki utilizes the Open Source tools to its competetive advantage. They are small for proprietary tool vendors to change the "off-the-shelf" features. But they can afford fine-tuned, Open Source tool suite for managing operation and growth.

Before you sign up for the On-Demand tool suite, check out the alternatives outined in the book.

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