Free, cheap software comes of age

Apogee Search, a 55-employee search engine marketing vendor based in Austin, Tex., is a veteran of the free software world. With little money, the company started its foray into free software in 2004, with a less-than-mature version of OpenOffice, an open source alternative to software suites like Microsoft Office. At the time, the company experienced a host of compatibility and usability issues that ended in discontinuing the product.

After a few years had passed and the bugs had been worked out, Apogee Search gave it another try, with much better results. Today, the company is actively starting to replace its expensive Microsoft Office licensees with OpenOffice, with the goal of moving many employees to it over time.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Apogee Search is so invested in the idea of free and low-cost software that it uses other products as well. For blogging, the company uses WordPress, while it uses the PHP scripting language for programming, MySQL for database needs, and Google Apps for a variety of productivity-related endeavors.

Some of this software has proven even more useful than its paid counterparts, said Ian Strain-Seymour, Apogee Search’s director of search marketing services.

“There are some status sheets we keep that are all built into Google Apps, so instead of having to navigate the network, find the spreadsheet and update it, it’s just part of everyone’s web browser,” he said. “For instance, we have a development spreadsheet maintained in Google Apps, which means anyone can see the status of a project, what the team is working on, and what other features/functions/changes have been proposed, along with their status. And we can all be looking at the same document at the same time.”

And at least in Apogee’s case, free/cheap software begets more free/cheap software; in large part because of its reliance on Google Apps’ integrated scheduling function. The company chose to standardize on the Personal Scheduling Assistant from TimeBridge of San Francisco, Calif., which integrates with both Outlook and Google’s scheduling function to coordinate calendars and facilitate scheduling meetings. The company also uses it to schedule company training sessions and meetings for dozens of people.

Although Apogee Search has had significant success with its foray into cheap and free software—the company saves about $20,000 per month, Strain-Seymour estimates—it’s not always a good choice, says Michael Speyer, a senior analyst with Forrester Research of Cambridge, Mass.

“Just because it’s ‘free’ doesn’t make cost-free, because there are risks that could result in costs, like downtime, opportunity costs and wasted productivity,” he said. “And definitely don’t use it for anything mission-critical.”

That’s one of the reasons why Apogee Search’s foray into cheap and free software is working so well; not only does the company pick and choose—it also uses plenty of standard commercial software applications—but even the company’s non-tech employees are particularly tech-savvy.

“With this group of people, you can tell them to install or download an application or do an upgrade, and we don’t have to do a lot of hand-holding,” Strain-Seymour said.

When the company rolled out TimeBridge, for example, the company sent an email broadcast to employees and posted directions on an internal blog about how to work the system. “We didn’t need to pull in everyone’s machine and have our systems administrator do it.”

It’s definitely worth a shot, especially if the company is willing to take the time to find the right tools and test the software, said Kathleen Reidy, senior analyst with New York-based 451 Group.

“Go ahead and explore it, pilot tools, download things and try them out. There are definitely a lot of lower cost alternatives out there these days. But there won't be a lot of hand holding from vendors; requires more initiative on the part of the customer to seek out the tools, sign up for trials or download and test the software. But if you're willing to do that, there are definitely some benefits.”

Apogee Search is well aware of that fact, which is why the company always pilot-tests any potential new software.

“We’ve learned to dip our toe in slowly: try it one person, then a small group or one team within the company, and then move everyone over. We don’t have a lot of time to waste fooling around with something that isn’t going to work,” Strain-Seymour said.

As the company grows larger, Strain-Seymour expects to be able to continue using most of its free or cheap software. Applications like WordPress and MySQL are built from the ground up to be highly scalable, and it doesn’t seem to matter how many users use OpenOffice, he said. Google Apps still has a ways to go, including adding group management capabilities, as does TimeBridge, but both products will have those features by the time Apogee Search needs them, he said.