[Tfug] Linux Makes Sense In Small Startups

[Angus Scott-Fleming]

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         May 28, 2004
Linux Makes Sense In Small Startups
 By Frnak J. Ohlhorst, CRN Test Center 	

  Small businesses are always trying to contain costs. No
  where is this truer than with a small business that is
  just getting on its feet. For them, open-source systems
  may be the key to success. 

  Those entrepreneurs are often shocked at the cost of
  hardware and software to get things rolling. With tight
  budgets, many try to buy wholesale or severely limit
  their initial purchases at the expense of functionality.
  After all, traditional software costs can reach
  thousands of dollars for operating systems, office
  suites and assorted other must-have applications. 

  A new business usually does not have a commitment to an
  existing platform, so open source becomes a viable
  alternative. The biggest challenges to deploying
  open-source operating systems have been the viability of
  the operating system and the availability of
  applications. Recent advances in the open-source market
  have greatly narrowed the gap between open-source and
  commercial systems, however. 

  With that in mind, the CRN Test Center set out to deploy
  a Linux-based desktop with associated applications for a
  pseudo startup business. For argument's sake, the Test
  Center developed a solution for a small public relations
  startup. One of the first considerations was hardware.
  Fortunately, Linux has evolved to the point where pretty
  much any hardware suitable for the Microsoft Windows
  platform will work. Test Center engineers chose two
  white-box PCs, one based on a 2.8GHz Intel P4 processor
  and the other on an AMD Athlon XP 2400. Both systems
  were equipped with 256 Mbytes of RAM and 80-Gbyte EIDE
  hard-disk drives. The machines were selected to provide
  adequate performance while still being easy on the
  pocketbook. 

.....

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Full story at
http://www.smallbizpipeline.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=21400315&printable
Article=true

--
Angus Scott-Fleming
GeoApps, Tucson, Arizona
1-520-290-5038 / fax 1-208-248-3124
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