
Because everyone loves free stuff
If you're part of a small business, chances are you're always looking for ways to save money. What many business owners and managers don't realize is that they can get all the software they need to run a business - quite literally all of it in most cases - 100% free of charge. That includes operating systems, word processing programs, accounting software, email servers, graphic design programs and more.
Here are four of the best!
- www.openoffice.org is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more.
- www.gnucash.org is personal and small-business financial-accounting software.
- www.gimp.org is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.
- www.linux.org is a free operating system, that can replace Windows or Mac operating system. Only for geeks and nerds!

Microsoft is allowing its Windows Live customers to consolidate their contact lists across different websites with the release of Windows Live Contacts API.