A promising new application is Graphon. It is a software program that allows you access to other software in your organization at a fixed location. Here is an example.

Assume that in your company, there are 100 people and all of them use Software A. You need to purchase 100 individual licenses for that software, even though at any given time, only about 20 people are using it. And some of your employees need to have Software A on their home PCs and their laptops, so you need 20 more individual licenses. You can do the math on how much that will cost (including the need to install the software on each of the 120 desktops, and maintaining the updates.) Pretty pricey ...

Here is a better scenario. What if you could buy 20 concurrent licenses for Software A, install and maintain it on one computer (a “server”) and give your employees access to the software on the central server? Now, instead of paying for 120 licenses, you pay for 20. Instead of buying 120 updates, you pay for 20. Instead of updating 120 computers, you update the 1 server. Starting to sound pretty cost-effective, isn't it?

Graphon lets you do just that - install an application on a server locally, on your network, or at a provider (like WebIncome) on the Internet. All of your employees can access it, from the office, home or on their laptops.

Here is another scenario. What if you are tired of using that OS that keeps attracting viruses and trojans, but you don't think you have a choice since you are heavily invested in all the software that runs on it? You do have a choice...

Industry analysts have predicted that with the Linux OS maturing rapidly, it will be ready to go head-to-head with Windows on corporate desktops within two years. But you've invested so much money in Windows software - won't it be too expensive to even think about migrating to Linux? Many who would consider migrating will avoid it just for this reason.

But with Graphon, you don't have to scrap all your old software and buy all new. Remember, Linux is Open Source - you don't need to buy the OS, you just need to download it. You don't need to buy all new software - Open Source software is freely downloaded from the Internet. Starting to think migration is possible? Read on ...

You set up one server (or have it available from a provider like WebIncome via the Internet) with all of the licensed, non-Open Source software that you want to have available to your employees (remember, you can buy a few concurrent licenses, rather than one for every potential user.) You install Linux or other Open Source OS (remember, Open Source OS's and software are not licensed, you can download them for free) on everyone's desktop computers plus install a browser on each desktop computer. Via the browser on their desktop computers, your employees can access the software on the server (or on the Internet), plus they can have Open Source applications installed on their individual desktops.

This is the good part - you save money on the OS, you save money on software licenses, you save on the updating the individual computers, and you are no longer exposed to the viruses, trojans and other malicious software from the "other" OS.

So in the end, you are the winner, not the software companies.