On the other side of the argument:
What do
you do if you are a small business owner, and need
a wide range of software for addressing the various
needs of new customers?
You need a board
layout program ($2500 initial, and another $1500
each year to keep it current)
Microwave analysis
software ($10K and $600 for each year's service)
EMAG analysis program ($25K to $85K to buy and
gosh knows how much a year to keep it current)
3D drawing package, like solid works ($5K to
buy and another $1K per year to update)
Whatever
bill gates throws at you that you have to have to
read customer information ($400 per seat for maybe
3 computers)
Matlab/Mathcad package ($10K
to $50K to buy).
And it goes on and on.
That is simply a boat load of money! If someone
comes up with some free or very low cost stuff,
like open office, 4NEC2, Dionysis, etc programs--you
have to check them out!!!!
BTW, anyone out
there try to use the latest microsoft office suite?
Boy does it stink! They moved EVERY function around
so that you can not do anything that you used to
know how to do! Avoid that one like the plague
