Open Source for Enterprise Doesn't Have to be About Ditching Microsoft Office

Even today, I hear so many people dismiss Open Source as unsustainable or unrealistic in an enterprise setting. Given the funding crisis in many public sector organisations, Open Source is an area many look at, but all to often it's an options appraisal of the core office productivity tools or server OS's, which whilst great ways to save money, require huge organisational change to implement.

Start Small and Simple

There is so much Open Source software out there it can be difficult to know where to start. Most organisations have a massive software library of many hundreds of applications, some specialist, some less so. One of the easiest ways I've found to sell colleagues on Open Source is to use Bitnami's fantastic ready-made solutions. If you've never used a Bitnami stack before, they are basically fully configured virtual machines ready for download. If you have Oracle's Virtual Box then you can download an Bitnami stack to your computer and have a fully working application ready to demo in minutes.

Bitnami conveniently group applications by function, so Business Intelligence, Project Management, Document Management, CRM, and Version Control software is easy to find, and that's just a taste of the categories available.

Save money and change culture

It's not uncommon for a Council to spend £5-10k on project management software. Often project progress is conveyed via endless updates and reports. You could try implementing Open Project, an open source browser based project management application that is extremely well supported. Not only could you save money but also change the way the organisation seeks updates on project by encouraging self-service.

What's worked for me

I've found a number of solutions available in ready-made form from Bitnami can find traction relatively easily.

• GitLab - Get your development teams working collaboratively and keep your source code safe.
• Open Project - As previously mentioned, a fantastic browser-based project management tool.
• Process Maker - Empower business process analysts to develop workflows for teams to enhance efficiency.
• Wordpress - This ready made stack gives you a well configured implementation of the #1 blogging and website platform.
• Moodle - Implement eLearning with this incredibly well supported learning management system.
• MEAN - The Bitnami MEAN stack is a great way to enable your developers to play with the latest in lightweight development