On one of the VA forums I moderate we periodically have discussions about the use of free software versus paid software. In many cases it makes sense to pay for decent software and after all, we are running businesses aren’t we? Sometimes going cheap means you pay for what you get – something that’s ‘cheap and nasty’. This doesn’t only apply to software but also other products and services.
However, another VA forum was discussing the type of software that VAs use and amongst those items were many free software programs that are very useful and not ‘cheap and nasty’. One of the VAs there posted on her blog about it and I thought it good to share the same here. Because there really are some good free programs out there that people are using the world over. The companies providing them have got a good strategy in place – they make a popular product free and then charge for the other products that complement that one product in many cases – such companies include Adobe and Lavasoft. And then there’s open source software as well – where groups of developers continue to work on the products and allow others to use them and test them.
Crystal tells the reader:
When choosing what programs and software you want, be open minded and check out what is available for f ree. Ask around and find out who you know has tried the f ree programs. See what limitations the f ree programs have. Then decide if f ree meets your needs.
This is the list of what I use. All of it was f ree.
AVG 7.5
Ad-aware SE
Firewall (came with the computer)
Diskeeper Lite
Adobe Reader 7.0
eFax Messenger
Zoho CRM
PDFCreator
For the full post, please go to her blog. If you have more to add to the list, why not let Crystal know? KMT
free software, open source, ‘cheap and nasty’, building a VA business, virtual assistant
Debbie Corlet says
Hi Kathie,
I’m in the middle of researching at the moment – free vs paid programs in CRM databases and it is very overwhelming as you really don’t know what you are getting until months down the track. They all claim to be the best.
My client has had bad dealings with ACT and would prefer not to use it and has been told by a futurist guru to go with open source all the way which is great for very basic contact data entry and retrieval but once you get into it and you’re trying to extract certain information for various clients and you get into trouble with it, then Open Source could be a problem as you don’t get any (or maybe little) support.
I’m going around in circles trying to decide as I really don’t want to make the wrong decision.
The open source his guru friend has suggested also comes with “On-Demand” support for AUS$35.00 (ex GST) per month. So it looks like I’ll try the open source and then upgrade to the next version once this gets a little messy.
Would love to hear of other VAs who use CRM packages and if they think Open Source is the way to go or if it should be avoided and left to more technical type people (not me).
Kind regards
Debbie Corlet
http://www.deb-e-secretarial.com.au