Being a Small and Medium Enterprise is no reason for not having great software/ tools on board to process-size and smartly operate your business. There are various options which are available in the open source domain which can go a long way in ensuring that you have the same power as that of many other 'paid' software suites/ programs. And in some cases these are better than the paid software itself.
All you need to do is be aware of the various opportunities and options available to you.
The challenge for SMEs: high cost of proprietary software
The challenge for Small and Medium enterprises is that they find the affordability of software applications difficult. At times they might not have the right budgets to buy licenses and many a times the need might not be as much to invest into smart software. Though all SMEs realize that software can help them run their business effectively and efficiently, but they might be constrained on resources which are monetary in nature and hence many of them are not able to fully realize the potential of technology.
Open Source helps SMEs get over this challenge, while getting the same set of value driven from the software applications, at no or very less cost.
Word processing for everyone: AbiWord
AbiWord is a free word processing program similar to Microsoft® Word. It is suitable for a wide variety of word processing tasks.
AbiWord allows you to collaborate with multiple people on one document at the same time. It is tightly integrated with the AbiCollab.net web service, which lets you store documents online, allows easy document sharing with your friends, and performs format conversions on the fly.
What can AbiWord do for me?
- Multi Platform
Source: http://abisource.com/tour/cross-platform.png
- Interoperability
Source: http://abisource.com/tour/interoperability.jpg
- Advanced Document Layout
Source: http://abisource.com/tour/advanced-layout.png
- Mail Merge
How does AbiWord Looks on a Windows desktop?
Source: http://abisource.com/screenshots/abi-win32.jpg
AbiWord is just like your usual Microsoft Word processor, with the advantage that it is free to use and is as powerful in its nature and processing.
How does it help my emerging business?
AbiWord is free and hence helps you first save on cost while giving you a performance which you derive from paid and proprietary software. Further, it helps your business become far more efficient and saves you time of buying differently priced and licensed software for different platforms, eg: you have to buy Microsoft Word for the Windows OS and for Apple, you have to buy the Apple version of the word processing suite. This obviously increases cost for the SME, which is a deterrent.
AbiWord can be installed on your systems and anyone can work on the same, which helps you smartly save on cost. Also, since it is a global program which is created by people collaborating globally, it is a robust piece of software, which ensures that your business gets the best.
There are many such online platforms available, which are benefiting the Small and Medium Enterprise segment. To know more, get in touch with the experts at IndiaMART Knowledge Services. Do drop in a comment to this post to let us know what else would you want us to share about!
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