Hosting Trek Gives the Gift of Business Software [January 21, 2005]

HostingTrek.com assembles free business software CD to distribute to its growing client base. The CD is made up of software that is beneficial to the Hosting Trek user base which is dominantly small businesses

January 21, 2005 – If you’re a Hosting Trek member, you can expect something extra with your monthly “Empowering E-Business” magazine. The Hosting Trek / SpivO Business Resource CD-ROM. Prior to Hosting Trek’s separation from founding company, Spider Trek Technologies, Inc., plans were in place to organize a software CD as a free benefit to the many members of HostingTrek.com. Once taken over by Hosting Trek’s new owner, the software project was put on the forefront at full speed. However, finding the software was a task Hosting Trek was not able to deal with.

“Software discovery is not an easy task.” An expert from Hosting Trek’s monthly “Empowering E-Business Magazine” explains, “You can’t just look online for ‘Business Software’ and assemble a resource. First you have to find the software, test its compatibility, and sometimes acquire distribution rights.” To handle the task, Hosting Trek turned to former sister company, SpivO. Recently bought by Ybor City Telco, SpivO agreed to take on the task of software discovery. SpivO search, being an open source software advocate, already had the contacts in place to assemble such a resource, leaving Hosting Trek with the duties of acquiring distribution rights.

The Hosting Trek software resource includes the Open Office Professional office suite, Anti-virus software with lifetime of free updates, Professional Web Editor, theGIMP Photo Suite, a PDF (Adobe Acrobat Compatible File) creator, Systems Online/SCT Inc.’s, Free Accounting Software, and other useful applications. Hosting Trek expresses boldly in its magazine that “…these [applications] are not demos, trial versions, or limited editions. All software is in its complete, fully functional, full license format.

While some of the software is open source and licensed under the GPL/GUI license, Hosting Trek had to acquire rights from other software authors. An entire section of “Empowering E-Business Magazine’s” February 2005 edition is dedicated to a closed license application titled “Free Accounting 1.0.0.6”. Free Accounting was developed by Systems Online/SCT Inc., as a complete bookkeeping and accounting application. Its simplicity and classy design gives it a professional reputation shared only by its “pay-for” competitors such as Quickbooks of Intuit, Inc. Systems Online also has other professional grade software applications for businesses which integrate with Free Accounting.

Regardless who the user is; Hosting Trek’s members are sure to find something valuable in this Free Business Resource CD. While users are receiving the benefits of these powerful applications, Hosting Trek’s partner in this project, SpivO, will be giving the benefit of spreading the word of Open Source Software. SpivO released in their January 20th press release, “The resource CD we worked on for Hosting Trek is not a promotional freeby. For us, it’s a way to show the business community that Free and Open Source Software is out there. And they [the software] possess the same usability and functional power as the competing commercial programs.” The first resource CD is available in Windows only since most Linux users are already familiar with open source software sources. However, A Mac version of the resource CD is underway.