Office/HR Management Software for Unix?

skuzzlebutt asks: "If you are dragging your office (kicking and screaming, no less) into the dynamic and typically, more affordable world of Linux and Open Source to keep those licensing and external help desk call costs down, have you considered your Office Management Software needs yet? I'm talking about things like HR Management, Scheduling, and the like. Snooping around on Freshmeat and SourceForge, the pickin's were pretty slim (I found one package at SF, but it has been posted for a year with no file releases), and Google wasn't much help either. I work as a developer for B of A and am also an MBA candidate; between these two roles, I run into many small business owners who are complaining about licensing costs, limited support options, can't-upgrade-unless-we-get-that-$75M-grant, and so forth. Has anyone had any success/horror stories for particular pre-fab commercial packages (be they open, closed, gratis, paid, etc)?"

Comments

Way to be a zealot.

[hatless]

Instead of deciding to "go with Linux" and then find software to run on it, how about you decide on what your company needs to function well and then pick the appropriate tools and packages, and then the OS. You might end up with Linux and you might not.

There are some very good web-based HR/payroll ASPs out there that tie into major payroll, insurance and benefits companies' systems. If not having the software in-house is okay with you, you may want to take a peek at Employease for a start.

What else? Accounting? On the low end ($500 or less for the whole thing) there isn't anything really comparable to Peachtree or Quickbooks Pro out there, though you might find some console-mode packages from some of the Unix vendors in the under-$2000 price range. In some cases, SCO apps of this sort will run okay under x86 Linux through iBCS. On the higher end ($10,000-$100,000) of small- to mid-size business accounting, there are probably a few more choices, also from old-line Unix software companies.

But what are you switching out? Just servers, or the desktops, too? Will you really be saving money if your employees can't open 20% of the word processor and spreadsheet files that have been e-mailed to them from outside? (Maybe, depends on the company and whether you're only doing this for a few departments.) How many people are running litle Access/Foxpro/whatever desktop databases vital to their work that will need to be redone from scratch?

Calendaring? Well, it's not free, but Lotus Domino sure runs nicely on Linux, and the web interface certainly cuts desktop support costs. StarOffice also has calendaring and is cheaper (the calendatr server isn't free if I recall correctly). But will it save you money over what you've already invested in?

No answer to your question but

[SuiteSisterMary]

"If you are dragging your office (kicking and screaming, no less) into the dynamic and typically, more affordable world of Linux and Open Source...

...then you are obviously less enthralled with the idea of 'customer service' and 'using the right tool for the right job' than with 'trying to look 1337 by forcing my preferences on everybody else without even checking to see if my idea will work for everything that the office needs to be able to do.'