Open Source (and OpenNTF.org) rock.

Just got out of the session on OpenNTF.org by Bruce Elgort : “How OpenNTF solutions can save you Time, Money, and (Bruce’s) Hair.” Bruce did a really good job and really pointed out the amazing benefits of this community. He also had a very slick presentation all done and presented on a Mac. Very cool.

If you don’t know about OpenNTF, you really should. I’m not just saying this because I consider Bruce a friend, I’m saying this because using open source is something you SHOULD be doing in your organization. And what better way than to leverage the technologies you know (Notes and Domino) than in an open source context?

You see, this blog is running on the Blogsphere template. It’s one of the applications available. I didn’t have to write this from scratch, I was able to leverage the work of some amazing developers out there. More and more people keep contributing, and the app just gets better and better. If you NEED a solution, why pay if you can find something as feature rich in the open source world?

Blogs, even though I think they have tremendous benefit in a corporate setting, might not be what your business needs. Well how about a help desk ticketing system? How about a wiki? How about a great discussion template? In fact, the DomBulletin template (which I have implemented at work) on OpenNTF has been used for the past three years BY LOTUSPHERE ONLINE. IBM realizes the value, don’t you think you should too?

Anyway, if you haven’t investigated it, you truly need to. Stop by OpenNTF.org and check out what is available. You may just save yourself some time, money and your hair.

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