It seems after a few months (read-  year) of bad news from the stock market we’re finally starting to see a  small turn around including continued gradual movements northward in both trading volume and closing average prices. Nevertheless, the cost cutting trend surges on as corporations big and small discover the benefits of running lean.

Maybe it’s the years of excess and complacency finally wearing itself away, but across the US you can see corporations publishing financial filings with key notes of “cost reduction” and “expense consolidation” with pride. Think what you will, but this trend seems here to stay for the time being. The truth is there are some really great (and not so amazing) ways to reduce reoccurring expenses. Over the course of the next few weeks we’ll be visiting ways you can think about cutting cost without cutting service because truly running efficient should not result at the cost of customer experience or create reduction of service offerings.

We’ll be looking into ideas small and large that can be implemented easily throughout an organization of any size. These ideas can be implemented by any member of a staff. We’ll focus on various portions of the business including operations, finance, buildings/facilities, and marketing. My hope is that with these ideas you’ll spur initiatives of your own and let us know how you take these strategies to the next level.

The first area we’ll focus on is one that is near and dear to my heart– free IT desktop programs that cut costs day one while offering the same functionality of user applications costing hundreds more. Think of it this way– for each license you don’t purchase you’re saving cash for other initiatives such as improving the infrastructure and operation support elements that most support the applications. In short, it’s money well saved.

• Open Office 3 – Developed by Sun Microsystems, Open Office is an open source free alternative to Microsoft’s Office XP Suite. It comes with a word processor, a spread sheet application, a math program, a presentation program, a drawing program, and a database program. The one thing Open Office misses is a true diagram program (i.e. Visio), but otherwise for your standard staff member the goods are all there including spell checking, multi-platform support, ability to write out to many formats (including native PDF output), and interoperability with MS Office. I use the program in my home office as do many of my colleagues. It’s great for students and professionals alike whether you’re home or at work.
• GanttProject – Microsoft Project is a great tool, but most Project Managers do not touch the true potential of what the program can do. For those of you who are rudimentary project planners or you’re not looking for true server side multi-user input (i.e. one person owns the update of the project plan) then GanttProject will work great for your team. Meant for the Project Manager dealing with projects of all sizes; GanttProject will help you plan, execute, and track a project through its life cycle. It too offers the ability to cross interface with MS applications including Project.
• FoxIt PDF Reader – I know Adobe PDF Reader is free, but my problem with their program is two fold. First, it’s notoriously slow. Second, it is the constant victim of exploits. For this reason, I’m a huge fan of Foxit’s PDF Reader. It’s fast, small, and not as targeted as its mainstream cousin.
• AVG Free 8.5 – Technically you cannot use Grisoft’s AVG Free Anti-virus for business deployments, but if you need a free, effective, and reliable anti-virus/anti-spyware application for your home PC (*ahem* home *cough* PC… *wink*) this is the one. AVG is robust and secure as one would expect from Germany’s number one malware protection company. Updates are timely (usually every day) and offer protection through “smart” ID methods that can even catch a virus the program does not have a definition for yet. AVG is the number one tool I install on a PC infected with a virus… usually one that already is running Symantec or McAfee, but was exploited any how.
• Firefox – Firefox is a free web browser that is secure, expandable, and fast. The multi-tab support has been copied by other web browsers, but no one can match the speed, stability, and over all configurable limits of Firefox.
• Thunderbird – When armed with the Lightning extension, Thunderbird replaces Outlook XP with ease. This email application includes mutli-account support, junk mail filtering (that works), calendar/reminder/task support, and a flexible contact address book.
• LogMeIn Himachi – Another program that is for “personal” use, Himachi is a VPN that needs zero configuration aside from being installed on the computers you wish to link. Himachi will change the way you work and liberate your ability to work from the cloud.
• Pidgin – Pidgin is an IM application that works with all the popular IM networks including Google, AOL, MSN, and Yahoo.  The ability to chat with co-workers in real time is both under estimated and under utilized. It will change the way you communicate internally and the speed which you do so.
• Google Earth – Need directions to a client’s business? Need to see where you can stay while on a business trip? Want to find a place to eat while out walking the sales beat? Google Earth is not only a mapping utility, but it can be used for finding businesses in an area or measure the distance between two nodes. Once you start playing with cartography (the art of mapping) you too will be hooked and it will change the way you literally look at the world.

Today we focused on common desktop applications. In the future we’ll be looking at more applications that are both free and useful for various tasks. This should, however, get you out the door for the time being and start making you think about what other “free” software alternatives exist. Stay tuned for more blogs on free software that is useful and offers real cost savings for every day tasks.