Some of the best software tools used around the world come from global companies such as Adobe, Microsoft, Autodesk, etc. They are feature rich and do advanced tasks. However, legal copies of these software are very expensive, at least for individuals, home users and small businesses.

Thankfully, there are many free and open-source alternatives available on the internet that can handle most of the tasks that these advanced software can do. A list of very useful software tools are provided below.

PART 1 - Office Suites
OpenOffice: Most people have used Microsoft Office to write documents, prepare spread sheets and presentations. In recent years, Sun Micro system's Open Office suite of programs is quietly making inroads into the business world and has become a strong player in the office suite arena. Its package offers Writer (Word), Calc (Excel), Impress (PowerPoint), Base (Access), Draw (Visio), and Math (Equation Editor).

Office Suite add-ons, like Outlook, Publisher, InfoPath, OneNote, SharePoint, and Groove, are not available. But for the core functions, OpenOffice is definitely a solid choice. OpenOffice 3 is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, and is available for download from http://www.openoffice.org/
Other Microsoft Office Alternatives:
KOffice http://www.koffice.org/
Google Docs http://docs.google.com/

PART 2 – Email Software
Thunderbird: Without doubt, Outlook is the most widely used email software. However, there are a few good open source alternatives for email software that are available on multiple platforms. Mozilla, creators of the Firefox web browser, developed a fully-featured, open-source email client named Thunderbird. Thunderbird offers email search, message tagging, a fully customizable interface, add-ons, extensions, and more.

Mozilla Thunderbird 2 is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux and can be downloaded from http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/
Other Microsoft Outlook Alternatives: Evolution (for Linux) http://projects.gnome.org /evolution/

PART 3 - Image Editing & Publishing Software
GIMP and GIMPshop: GIMP, otherwise known as the GNU Image Manipulation Program, is one of the oldest and most well-known open-source projects available today. GIMP offers most basic and intermediate level functions, like resizing, editing, cropping, layers, filters, and more.
GIMPshop is a modification to the GIMP software package that offers menus and user interface similar to Photoshop. GIMP is available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and more, while GIMPshop is only available to Windows users. Download them from the following locations: GIMP http://www.gimp.org/ & GIMPSHOP http://www.gimpshop.com/
Other Photoshop Alternatives:
CinePaint http://www.cinepaint.org/
Krita http://www.koffice.org/krita/

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