An increasing number of businesses and government agencies have already made the move. If your small business is looking for an alternative to MS Office, a good choice may be LibreOffice 4.1. Read these migration tips.

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.

When it comes to businesses using open source software, medium and large enterprises seem to get most of the press. However, small office/home office (SOHO) setups with 10 employees or less may see even greater benefit from switching to open source applications.

Novell today introduced a new suite of workgroup applications for small businesses, based on "proven," open standards-based software. The Novell Open Workgroup Suite Small Business Edition includes Linux server and desktop components, and bundles email, collaboration, and other open-source office products.

On paper, Linux seems to be the ideal workstation operating system for the corporate environment: highly configurable, free, secure, easily deployed in a network, extremely stable.... So why are medium and small businesses, the backbone of the US economy, not switching over to Linux?

Whether for private users, small and midsize businesses, major corporations, or public institutions, Open Source software has in the past years become a reliable alternative to commercial solutions. And not just because it is less expensive. Businesses are becoming increasingly convinced of the quality of this free software.

Mark Twain has been quoted as saying that he respected a person who could spell a word more than one way. Unfortunately, Twain's enthusiasm for creative spelling isn't widely shared today, at least in the professional world.

Nearly everyday we hear about how the modern Linux distributions are not only ready for the home user, they can even meet the growing demands of many small businesses as well.

Here's an explanation of what was going on in Hungary and why Ballmer had eggs thrown at him: "A Hungarian Government bid, worth $25B Hungarian Forints, roughly $157M was allegedly skewed towards MS.