NewswireToday - /newswire/ - Pasig City, Metro Manila, Philippines, 04/01/2008 - Linux company IPSYSTEMS, Inc. celebrates eight years in the open source industry, a milestone marked by the achieved goal of spreading Linux and open source among small and medium sized enterprises in the Philippines.

Linux company IPSYSTEMS, Inc announced today the beginning of its month-long celebration of the company's eighth year in the Philippine open source industry.

“Our eight years in the business has been marked by an increasing number of Philippine small and medium sized enteprises (SMEs) being educated and knowledgable on Linux, and actually making use of open source software to help them achieve their business goals. We feel very happy with this achievement, as this has always been our mission.” said Patricia B. Celis, VP for sales and marketing.

To celebrate this anniverary, IPSYSTEMS is offering free 1-day consultations throughout the month of April, especially targeted towards SMEs who may wish to know more about Linux and open source, and how these can help their businesses become more efficient and competitive. “Our way of celebrating is by continuing to spread and support the use of open source by small and medium-sized enterprises in the country,” said Ms. Celis.

The competitiveness of the SME sector in the Philippines, making up 99.5% of registered industries nationwide, is commonly believed to be hampered by their lack of knowledge and implementation of technology. This is due mainly to the belief that technology is expensive to acquire and maintain.

For example, commercial software licenses such as Microsoft Exchange 2007 server today have an initial cost of about Php 74,000.00. This price is inclusive of only five client access licenses (CALs) or licenses for workstations to connect to the server, with additional computers needing additional CALs. The price also further covers only the server software license cost, and does not include the cost for the hardware or its yearly license maintenance.

In contrast, open source software does not require licenses to be purchased and maintained. The reason behind this is because the source code - program instructions in their original form – is made freely and publicly available for use or modification, unlike proprietary software wherein the source code is generally not made available. The software thus becomes “free”, due to its open nature, making Linux and open source software an affordable and practical technology for SMEs to implement in business.

Agency / Source: IPSYSTEMS, Inc.

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