As a small to mid-sized business owner, you've likely purchased commercial software products for years to meet your business needs. You've paid annual licensing fees, dealt with less-than-helpful 800 numbers for tech support and rationalized the extra cost of upgrading to the latest and greatest versions.

You've probably thought once or twice about open source software, but you may not have investigated its uses for your business because you’re not sure why or how to implement it or you worry about costs and functionality. This article aims to help you out of your software rut by sharing the characteristics and benefits of open source, describing open source alternatives to popular software packages and outlining some key reasons for open source migration.

HOW IS OPEN SOURCE DIFFERENT?

Software development firm helps network monitoring program grow

ANN ARBOR, MICH. – March 25th, 2008 – The Linux Box Corporation announced it has joined Nagios Enterprises (Nagios) in a partnership that will help both companies provide open source support for Nagios products to customers nationwide. “The Linux Box and Nagios are partnering together to grow the Nagios user community and provide first class services for a first class product,” said Elizabeth Ziph, Linux Box’s chief executive officer.