Cut your business costs with free software

In these slowing economic times, most businesses are looking for ways to cut costs…. Inspired by the advice for reducing business IT costs from Y Combinator‘s Paul Graham (featured in this month’s Inc magazine), we’ve put together a list of the free software and web applications that we use and think are great for small businesses.

• Google Apps – Includes Google’s email app (Gmail), Google calendar, and Google Docs (which provides excellent web-based word processing and spreadsheet tools). As Google Apps are web-based you don’t need any special software or hardware, and you can access your data from anywhere. The standard edition is free. If you’ve got a larger business or need additional support you may want to consider the premier edition (which has a 30-day trial period).
• Google Analytics – Powerful tool for tracking, analysing and reporting on your website traffic.
• CutePDF – Create professional PDF files from any printable document.
• Paymo – Online time-tracking tool. Free for small businesses and freelancers (up to 3 users).
• Mindomo – Web-based mind mapping tool which allows you to create and edit mind maps, and share them with your colleagues or your friends.
• WordPress – Blog tool and web-publishing platform. While being incredibly powerful and well-featured, WordPress makes it simple to create and manage website content. At finding simple, we love WordPress.
• Skype – Make free video calls to other Skype users. Great for video-conferencing.

A couple of other apps we’ve heard good things about and are looking forward to using include:

• Jing – Grab and share screenshots and video straight from your PC.
• Remember the Milk – Online to-do list and task management program. Integrates with GMail and Twitter, syncs with Blackberry and Windows Mobile, and now features an iPhone app.
• Screenhunter 5.0 Free – Screen capture software. Instead of using ‘Print Screen’ and pasting into ‘Paint’, this application offers easier and more flexible screen capture.