The Imperative of Open Source Apps

摘要

Information needs of small and mid-sized companies are no different from larger firms. The volume of data and the number of people involved may d] but the capabilities needed from the IT applications are similar. The predi ment a mid-sized firm faces is how to get an application with same feature the big boys use and still staywithin budget An IT application cost consists of two components. There are the licensing fees associated with a product and there are the service costs associated with customisation of the product and installation, training and support costs. Before proceeding further, let me relate a story. A new marketing head had asked me for help in getting region-wise, product-wise sales. It did not seem to be an issue till we looked into the data. Finance had simplified their task by entering only the summary value of the invoices. The sale value for each customer was known but not what he bought.