Today we released the revamped Auscool Airconditioning website.

Auscool Airconditioning's previous website was a basic, single page website. We gave the site an attractive, professional, bright new look. We also incorporated the Content Management System, which gives the Managers of Auscool Airconditioning total control over the content of their site. By taking advantage of the CMS, there is no need for understanding how a website works, but they can still add, change or delete pages on their website. They can also add or remove sub-content panels to pages, or upload and change images whenever they choose to. Many other aspects of the website are also able to be controlled from the CMS.

We are looking forward to working further with Auscool Airconditioning to add more features to their website as their business grows, and the need arises.

Linux World reports , "The Japanese government wants to go open source, as a way to rely less on a single vendor IT software infrastructure. And plenty of vendors are lining up to help make this happen."

The Japanese government has explicitly stated it wants to decrease its reliance on Microsoft as a server operating system platform.

This places Japan on a long list of other governments, including Spain, Brazil, Belgium, France and the Netherlands already heading in the direction of Open Source. After many years of paying a premium for software licensing, governments and companies alike are beginning to realise that operating costs can be cut, thereby reducing overall operating costs and cost to market, freeing them to provide a more cost competitive service or product to their customers.

It is widely claimed by many technical people that Open Source Software is

• cost effective
• flexible
  
• reliable
• secure 

Why should large percentages of the budget for a relatively small project be spent on licensing when excellent Open Source Software (OSS) exists that can take the place of proprietary software?

In a server environment, Open Source systems provide flexibility by allowing you to choose exactly what software runs on your servers. You also aren't paying for software you don't need, and you can trust that there aren't unknown components running without your knowledge. If you decide to add a new database server to your system there is no need to check with the accounting department first! This lets you implement your system the way you want it, not the system the budget limits you to.

History has also shown open source software is often more reliable and secure. An example of this is the GNU Linux operating system, which boasts high reliability and security. If you are running a website, you know it must be available at all times. If your desktop computer crashes sometimes, or does things for no apparent reason that may not be catastrophic. But if the web server your company website is hosted on behaved that way I'm sure you would be far less pleased!

The sum of all these benefits really means Open Source is a great enabler, one that enables you to do what you choose to do. For all these reasons and more, Division by Zero recommends the use of Open Source Software wherever possible. 

It seems many companies are scrambling to implement Web 2.0 style sites and services, but are finding that they don't have the in-house skills or the time to commit to projects.

This in itself isn't very surprising, as Web 2.0 is a relatively new take on web application development, and until recently larger companies have viewed the philosophies behind Web 2.0 as a fad that will simply go away once people stop looking. But people didn't stop looking, it didn't go away... and it kept the users happy. The earlier adopters of this new way are of course extremely relieved that it didn't go away! We now have a whole new set of tools to help us build great applications, and even the larger corporate customers are no longer afraid of Web 2.0.

Corporate blogs are now commonplace, with some of the largest companies in the world embracing open communication with their customers... Live chat features have become a standard way for customers to communicate with support staff... Collaborative development, with users taking advantage of the wisdom of the crowds, is king.

Is your company suffering from the lack of experience to actually implement the great ideas that will add to your profitability? Are you one of those developers that "quietly" add Web 2.0 style features to projects? Or are you a traditionalist, and just can't wait to see these kids with their annoying Ajax calls fall by the wayside?