[Wolves] open source applicaiton in SME

[Old Dan]

I suppose seeing as I work for an SME I really should answer...

Yi Wu wrote:
> Hi,this is my university account.
> I'm currently studying electronic business Management at the University of Warwick. My postgraduate research is looking at open source application in small and medium enterprises for the National B2B open source project and I would be grateful if you could fill out the following questionnaire, based on experience in your current organisation.All the information collected will be treated in strict confidence. the survey is only to provide a general trend of Open Source usage and anonymous quotes,without the the company's detail.  
> 
> Section A
> 
> 1 Company Name: Jones & Woolman (UK) Ltd
> 2 Industry sectors: Construction
> 3 How many employeees in your company? ~50
> 4 Does you company use open source software?
> Yes indeedy doodly
> If yes, please go to section B
> If no, why not choose open source software in business?
> E.g. difficult to find support from outside
> ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Section B
> 1. What kind of open source the company is using or will use?

Web browser(mozilla firefox), email client(mozilla thunderbird), SAMBA 
(as PDC), OpenLDAP, iptables, PostgreSQL, Apache, cygwin(for remote X)...

> 2. Do you think it is easy, stable and reliable to use?

Yes

>  3. Did you ever meet some problems when running open source? If yes, 
please state them?
Not really.  No more than closed-source, anyway.

> 4. How do you solve the problems?
By thinking it through?  (and asking these kind chaps here of course)

> By your internal professional By the outside IT company
Outside IT company?  Er, what are they?  :)

> 5. How often do you upgrade and maintain the system?
All the time, I, like, work here and stuff.  :)

> 6. What aspects of open source that you think, should be improved to facilitate the usage and help the business?
1)  Those nice folks who do SAMBA should integrate AD.  (If anyone says 
'but you don't NEED to' I'm going to SCREAM at them.  Be warned.  My 
screams are LOUD.  :) )
2)
3)
> 
> 7. What advantages you think you have gained by using open source software in business?
1)  In business terms, it helps the bottom line.
2)  It doesn't crash as often (that is in terms of having a Linux server 
and Smoothwall as a router)
3)  There's no danger of not being maintained after a certain period of 
time.  Of course, that's because the server's a Debian.  :)

> Thank you very much for filling this questionnaire! Your help is greatly appreciated.
You're very welcome, kind Wu.

Now, when are you coming to a meeting again?  Warwick isn't THAT far... :)

-- 
Dan