[ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu for small business

[Jim Price]

On 27/07/10 21:33, Grant Sewell wrote:
> On Tue, 27 Jul 2010 21:14:05 +0100
> Jim Price wrote:

>> It's all going to help at some point I suspect.
>
> You could go down the Google Apps route - mail, document space with the
> ability to share between users (and have them work on the document
> simultaneously, which takes a bit of getting used to).  There are
> plenty of CRM and ERP systems that integrate with the Google Apps
> "single sign-on" way of things.  Since you can enable IMAP/SMTP support
> relatively easily, you don't have to use the GMail interface for mail -
> you can use whatever client you want, so having Ubuntu on the desktop
> would be relatively easy.

There's a lot to like about Google Apps, but it might not match up with 
my perceived need to avoid lock-in wherever possible. I think their 
pricing is a little like the timeshare model, where they are pitching it 
against how you could do it with other proprietary models rather than 
how much it costs them to do it plus a reasonable profit. I will 
continue to keep my eye on it though, and use gmail for personal use of 
course.

-- 
JimP