One of the main advantages of open source software is the freedom to modify and redistribute software as anyone sees fit thanks to the GNU General Public License many of the open source software packages carry. Unfortunately, a lot of these packages require somewhat intimate knowledge with the LAMP software bundle (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) that many people can find very intimidating. All of the latest and greatest packages remain just out of reach for the less tech savvy individuals and those small businesses lacking IT managers.

Fortunately, there are hosted software solutions in existence that offer many of the same benefits and features found in the latest open source software, such as Zoho’s hosted business suite.

What is Zoho all about?
Zoho is a suite of online applications (services) that you sign up for and access from Zoho’s Website. The applications are free for individuals and some have a subscription fee for organizations. Zoho’s vision is to provide their customers (individuals, students, educators, non-profits, small and medium sized businesses) with the most comprehensive set of applications available anywhere (breadth); and for those applications to have enough features (depth) to make your user experience worthwhile.

What is the main advantage of using Zoho?
Zoho is bringing together a wide range of online applications making it easier for individuals and businesses to manage all their work while dramatically reducing the cost. But being more productive and saving money is just the beginning of using Zoho. As they continue to integrate the various Zoho services and innovate on new ways of getting things done, they hope that you will find working online not only more rewarding, more collaborative, but more enjoyable. You can read some of their blog posts to learn more about some of the advantages of working online. Here are a couple of sample posts: “Offline vs. Online”. and “Business at the Margins”. a post by Zoho’s founder and CEO.

While using Zoho your documents and data are securely stored online on their servers and can be accessed from anywhere. This means as long as you have Internet access you can access your Zoho data from any computer and enjoy a productive and convenient working experience wherever you go without the hassle of bringing your computer with you. In addition, Zoho helps people collaborate on projects and share information with a simple mouse click. For example, in Zoho Writer, there are several ways to share documents in private, make them public or even perform collaborative editing in real time. Zoho also offers a very economical approach to getting your work done. While we offer free editions of all their applications, businesses also have access to our business editions at extremely competitive rates.

Highrise is not an open source software solution, but it is an effective hosted crm solution that offers free use for 1-3 users and has a very affordable hosting plan. Highrise helps you track communication and conversations with leads, employees, clients, colleagues, vendors, or anyone else that matters to your business. With Highrise you know who’ve you talked to, what you talked about, and what you need to do next.

Who can use Highrise?
Highrise is great for salespeople who want to keep track of their clients and leads, journalists who want to keep track of people and companies they’ve covered, real estate agents who want to keep track of their buyers and sellers, and plenty more.

Plays well with Email
You can forward, cc, or bcc emails to Highrise and Highrise will attach them to the matching person or create a new person on the fly. You can also email tasks to Highrise.

Share it company wide
With Highrise you can share contact information and knowledge about vendors, clients, leads, and others with your co-workers. Now the next time you need to contact a customer you can find out who else talked with that customer, what was said, and what was done.