Today I spent some time visiting with some clients, and one in particular stands out. They are a small shop, eight computers in total (running Windows XP), and a server (Running Windows 2000). Spending an hour and a half with them I realized that 90% of their issues could be solved if I replaced their desktops with Ubuntu. And then I realized that Ubuntu and other Open Source applications would be a great solution for small business. Heres why.

Why I was at the client

The client called into the call-center complaining that the PC’s they where using were sluggish. They asked if someone could come around to advise them on new computers. Getting there I was confronted with slow internet connection speeds, sluggish computers and CPU usage that was pegged at 100% when I opened Task Manager.

The thing is, the computers were mostly 2ghz dual-core machines with 1GB RAM, with two AMD Sempron machines with 512mb ram hanging around. I have a Sempron with 1GB RAM at home. It is a decent light work machine. Sure it is old, but what I saw at the client was horrible.

Slow internet? Heck, they had 4MB/s uncapped ADSL – the internet itself wasn’t slow, the browsers took forever to load.

What Was Wrong?

The 100% CPU pegging was caused by spoolsrv freaking out. Tooling around I found failed print jobs dating back to 2008! For some reason failed prints (some queued on the Microsoft Document Image Printer) got stuck and caused spoolsrv to use 99% CPU constantly. Cleaning out the print queues fixed the spoolsrv issue.

That solved the sluggishness of the PC’s.

I then turned my attention to the “slow internet” problem. Task Manager indicated excessive memory use for Internet Explorer. In some cases as much as 100mb. I found that Internet Explorer was loaded with addons and toolbars. Some of the toolbars used extra memory all on their own. It was a mess.

I decided to do two things. Remove the addons and install Google Chrome as an alternative to Internet Explorer 6. Yes they were still stuck in IE6 land. Why Chrome and not FireFox? One of them had Chrome on her desktop and I found it easier to give everyone that rather than explaining what FireFox is and what it does.

Their Daily and Weekly Ritual.

The client makes bookings for travelers via a program (archaic of course) that resides on an old Win 2000 server. The users remote desktop into it and use the program via remote session. It was set up to allow multiple Remote Desktop sessions at the same time. It is managed by another company and I didn’t touch it, it seemed fine.

For the desktops they used an Antivirus (Trend Micro) and Malware Scanner (Malwarebytes) to secure their PC’s. They used Trend to run automated scans daily, and manually ran Malwarebytes weekly. This used up a lot of time and computer resources. With Trend running the whole time to secure their e-mail and browsers… well you get the picture.

They used MS Office 2003/2007 for their spreadsheet/e-mail needs, and at least one of them could not edit documents or read e-mail because the registration period had expired and office was locked without any functionality. Registration was done online, a simple task… but I digress.

Why This Long Story?

Well I am trying to get to the point of FLOSS being a great solution to small business today. For the client used in the example above I could replace all their Windows XP installs with Ubuntu and solve 99% of their problems. I would not replace the Win 2000 server just yet, that would need some work from a developer. Thing is they would still be able to connect to that server with RDESKTOP (a command line utility that can be called via a simple one click bash script) and do their bookings.

Gone would be the need for daily and weekly virus scans. Gone would be the unexplainable sluggishness they were hampered with. Gone would have been my need to come and fix minor things.

They would have a much more modern desktop OS for free. A great office suite for free. No need to pay a yearly license renewal for eight computers for Antivirus software. No easily one-click installable cute little programs that added toolbar helpers and whatnot and wreak havoc with computers.

Why FLOSS is a great alternative

And now to my point. Most small businesses today can do quite comfortably without Microsoft Windows. Yes even if you run an archaic database application built on MS Access. Here is what can be done. You see, MS Access databases can be exported to CSV and imported into a MySql database. For the money you would spend on Windows Licenses and MS Office licenses you can hire a developer to build you a custom PHP based solution that can live on a small Ubuntu based server in your office.

Everyone can then interact and use this custom PHP solution with just their web browsers.

This Ubuntu (or other Linux) based server could then take care of your e-mail, firewall, proxy and VPN needs. You won’t need an exchange server. The guys at Ultimate Linux Solutions build and maintain servers just like these.

Yes, these days there are even Linux based solutions that support calendar sharing. It could even be a very effective print server. (I have a client that is running into problems with their Windows XP based print server/workstation. XP Pro only allows 10 concurrent connections to a machine, they recently expanded and now more than ten people need to print to that machine, they now reboot it regularly to allow number 11 in the queue to print…)

And you know the beauty of this solution? It is completely mobile capable. Since your DB is web based, you can have consultants in the field making updates to your system from their cellphones if need be. I have clients who spent just as much as a PHP custom solution would cost on a custom Access based solution that they used to manage their work. Once they open a new branch the system falls apart. I actually have a client with two branches in Pretoria where someone mails the entire database of the new branch to someone else at the old branch and they integrate the two… somehow. I was afraid to ask exactly how they managed that.

Summary

Apologies to my readers, I know I am largely preaching to the choir here – and possibly rambling along a bit. Okay a lot. The thing is, the Open Source community has provided small enterprise perfect solutions for some of the most basic problems. Business owners should realize that they don’t necessarily need Microsoft Windows and Office and Exchange. They can have all that functionality, and more, for free. Yes you might spend money to build a custom solution like I outlined above, but I guarantee it would cost no more than it would cost to get someone to build you a custom MS Access solution, and you would get greater functionality and expandability.

Sure, some business cannot go without Windows, some of my clients are financial advisors that use third party developed software that only runs on Windows – I get that. Some of my clients are Graphic designers who need Photoshop and use Windows or Macs. Most of my clients have no such need however, recruitment agencies who drag along Windows 98 machines (yes really) because the custom application they built way back when would cost too much to upgrade to the latest version of access. Companies who have “databases” residing on a Windows XP machine in the form of huge excel spreadsheets. (The 10 connection limit often causes problems for them too…)

You “need” to use Pastel to do your books? Okay, if you really have to, but then let only the accountants use XP if you must, your pastel server can reside on a linux machine as well.

Point is, there is a great alternative of cost effective solutions that people just don’t utilize. If you are in the choir, spread the word! If you are not, get hold of someone from said Choir (or me) and let us introduce you to a whole new world of effective business.

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