Small and Medium-sized Businesses are usually quite keen to consider switching to Open Source IT solutions, and not without reason: Linux and other Open Source tools are mature—often with features that rival and exceed proprietary alternatives in terms of usage and implementation—proven to be secure, low-maintenance once set up and most important of all, free.

As small businesses around Whatcom County look to cut costs in a slowing economy, presenters at this weekend’s LinuxFest Northwest are encouraging the use of Linux technology.

In my opinion, large businesses are too tied to a big system based in Windows to switch to Linux, but creative professionals and small businesses have much less of a tie to any particular operating system and if there were applications that did what they need to Linux, they would switch.

There are a number of netbooks on the market, but I wanted to get my hands on one loaded with the Linux operating system, Ubuntu. With a number of cell phone companies switching to Linux, I think it's only a matter of time before more and more laptops, see the light. System 76 is a company that is dedicated to the Linux operating system.

A Taiwanese network-appliance system integrator announced a wireless network security appliance that runs Linux. Drawing only 2.4 Watts, AR Infotek's fanless Teak 3018 is equipped with four auto-sensing Ethernet interfaces, plus WiFi, and targets SMBs (small- and medium-sized businesses).

LedgerSMB is a free (licensed under the GPL), web based double entry accounting system written in Perl which uses PostgreSQL for data storage. It is intended for small and medium businesses (SMB), and it can be used easily through a regular web browser like Firefox. This tutorial explains how to install LedgerSMB on a Debian Etch system.

If you’re running a small business and you’re in the market for server, you might want to consider SME Server, a Linux distribution customised specifically for the small and medium sized business environment.

A few weeks ago, Microsoft rolled out what’s arguably its most important product this year: Windows Server 2008, the operating system for corporate server computers. It’s a cornerstone to a bunch of other Microsoft software, and it will be used by businesses large and small.

How many are self-employed in the United States? No one knows for sure, but estimates range around 20 million. Add to this millions of small businesses, and you have a huge pool of workers who run their businesses on personal computers. Dentists, handymen, shop owners, yoga instructors, lawyers ... all require reliable, easy-to-use computers for their work...Should they use Linux?