CALL: 877.333.9429

Office Productivity

Software for your office

Published October 29th, 2008 by Mike Sullivan

From time to time, aBetterOffice will write about topics that can help to improve your business. Today, I will discuss one of my favorite topics: office software.

No, not Microsoft Office software, but rather somewhat the opposite of Microsoft and their way of doing business. I’m talking software as a service, free online software, open source software, community software and other types of low cost, innovative software for your office.

First, let’s start with office suite software. At aBetterOffice, we like to use OpenOffice. OpenOffice is a free, open source software that rivals Microsoft Office. It is a step or two behind Microsoft, but it does everything I need it to do and it saves me about $300 per computer. Other good alternatives are StarOffice (Sun’s commercial competitor to MS Office), Google Docs (Google’s online office suite) and Zoho. 

Next, if you’re a company that has a sales force, you probably know the importance of a sales force automation tool, such as salesforce.com or Zoho. Another alternative is SugarCRM which has a very flexible model where you can use the community version for free, or pay for a hosted version that rivals salesforce.com. However, my pick is dex. Part LinkedIn, part Salesforce.com plus a lot of new features and innovative business logic, dex may change the way small businesses use CRM applications.

Photo management software is ubiquitous, and in many cases isn’t important to business users. However, having all your photos indexed on your computer for immediate access is always handy. For this, I recommend Google’s Picasa. Even if you are a light photo user at work, it’s worth the time to keep all your photos organized and ready to use.

There are a lot more software tools out there. Here is a list of software I have used that help save time and money:

WordPress – blogging software

Expression Engine – website content management system and blogging software

GIMP - Photo editing application that rivals Photoshop in features

Clamwin – Free, open source anti-virus protection for your PC

There are many others. You can google “top open source software” or “top free software” to find software for your office.

Related posts:

  1. About aBetterOffice ABetterOffice is dedicated to providing advice and information to mobile...
  2. How to Find a Better Office ABetterOffice.com is a resource for understanding the serviced office and...
  3. FAQs Why “aBetterOffice”? I worked at a large serviced office company...
  4. Glossary of office space terms In order to help the “innocent” office space seeker find...
  5. Office space for the mobile professional Many executive office suite companies are pouring more focus into...
  6. Perfect Office Space for Lawyers There are several vertical industries for which executive office space...
  7. Office trends of the future CoreNet Global has recently published a new feature in the...

New York Office Space | Chicago Office Space | Los Angeles Office Space | Dallas Office Space | Houston Office Space | Washington DC Office Space

About the Author

Mike Sullivan

Mike Sullivan is a marketing professional who previously worked at one of the large executive suite companies in the US. It was there he began thinking about how people use office space, and how innovative offerings from executive suites, coworking facilities and virtual offices can improve the way people work. Connect with Mike Sullivan on LinkedIn.

Leave a Response

This entry was posted on at and is filed under Office Productivity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS-2.0 feed. You can trackback from your own site or leave a comment below.