Seven essential ways to cut your tech costs

Technology costs can easily eat away any budget -- a few software upgrades and new systems here, another IT person to manage your network there -- and before you know it, you've completely eroded your profits.

Whether your business has just two people or two hundred, these tips can help you cut costs, save money, and let you focus on what's really important: the bottom line.

1. Use Open Source and Free Software

Let's face it--when you're trying to keep your business afloat, plunking down lots of cash for off-the-shelf software hurts like getting a cavity filled without Novocain. Thankfully, freeware and low-cost software can be a pleasant surprise in terms of robustness and functionality.

While not as polished as Microsoft's Office suite (but not as much of a memory or resource hog), OpenOffice.org is a free, open-source alternative with a full suite of applications for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, and databases that are compatible with Microsoft Office. Though OpenOffice apps let you do nearly anything you can do in Microsoft Office, interoperability between the two suites isn't seamless. For example, if you use Word's Track Changes feature, it can be difficult to later delete or modify your edits when you use the document in OpenOffice, and vice versa.
Google Docs is another viable and free alternative to Microsoft Office--and has no software to download or install. Though it's not nearly as full-featured as either Office or OpenOffice, its basic functionality and streamlined interface may be all you'll ever need.

Creating PDF files may be crucial for business, but spending US$450 on Adobe's Acrobat Professional is not. CutePDF is a free program that simply exports files to PDF. Just download and install it; from the target file, choose File•Print, and select CutePDF from the printer menu. (If you're using OpenOffice or Google Docs, you won't even need to install CutePDF--both let you export to PDF directly.)

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