[ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu for small business

[Jim Price]

On 27/07/10 19:24, Alan Lord (News) wrote:
> On 27/07/10 18:42, Jim Price wrote:
>> I couldn't make the Ubuntu in Business meeting a couple of weeks ago,
>> but is there a writeup of what happened there? Are there any other good
>> starting points to get an overview of what Ubuntu can offer the small
>> (but hopefully fast growing) business?
>
> For an SME I'd be thinking (server end first) about an alternative to
> Microsoft SBS, e.g. Email, Shared drives, Proxy, Content Filters etc.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do about email yet. It is likely to start 
sufficiently small that I'm thinking using their ISP email would be a 
good place to start - when they get offices and an ISP. I have the 
opportunity to avoid SMB to the clients for shared drives, as it is all 
being done from scratch. I'm tempted to try an sshfs implementation to 
take some of the burden away from making it secure. Proxy and content 
filters are going to be straightforward to start with, but as with all 
of this, I need to pick something scalable. One of the biggest problems 
is likely to be starting with a very low budget and an IT department of 
one (me).

> We (The Open Learning Centre) get asked quite a lot about "business
> applications" rather than Ubuntu itself. Ubuntu makes a great OS for
> running apps like:
>
> Virtually any Web/MySQL/PHP app,
> CRM,
> Doc Management,

I hadn't considered doc management as a standalone thing. I'll have to 
put a bit more thought into that.

> Asterisk (VOIP PBX)

One of the other directors of the company is likely to try and do the 
PBX side of things, and I strongly suspect that will be done using 
proprietary products from one of his other companies.

> Even ERP systems.

I'm going to be pushing the idea that CRM and ERP are selling the idea 
of big integrated solutions from one supplier, which you only see as an 
advantage if you hit problems integrating or scaling your existing 
packages. I'm hoping to avoid those problems in the first place by using 
open source software and not getting locked into anything proprietary 
which won't integrate well. I've always been surprised that people have 
thought solving integration and lock-in problems needs a single bigger 
product with a bigger lock-in than any of the components replaced by it.

> If the new company is a startup then Ubuntu would be a great choice on
> the desktop, but if there is already a legacy of Windows and familiarity
> with it, then this is a hard sell for a small firm where the cost
> benefits are not significant enough on their own.

The issue with familiarity I'm expecting is going to be with the 
employees, but I've transferred enough friends and relations to Ubuntu 
that I don't really anticipate huge problems there.

> A sometimes good route is to use cross-platform apps like
> OpenOffice.org, Mozilla Thunderbird/Lightning and run them on Windows
> for while.

That is an approach I've used for people who already have windows, but 
I'm hoping to keep windows completely off the desktop, and serve any 
windows apps from somewhere I can keep control of them.

> This makes a transition to Ubuntu slightly easier although TB
> packaging in Ubuntu is sub-optimal currently.

In what way is TB sub-optimal? I've not hit serious problems with it 
myself, and I use it a lot. The only thing I can think of which some 
people have had issues with is Lightning integration with the various 
versions of TB.

> Hope this helps.

It's all going to help at some point I suspect.

-- 
JimP