The open-source buzz has been heard in corporate IT departments for a while now. But lately, Main Street mom-and-pops are listening, too. A recent Jupiter Research survey shows a growing number of small and midsize businesses (SMBs) using open-source alternatives to Microsoft products. About 9% of SMBs are using Red Hat Linux on the desktop, and 7% are using the OpenOffice productivity suite, which contains word processing and spreadsheet programs.
