In today's economic climate, everyone is looking for a way to reduce their expenses. In the IT sector, one way to reduce expenses is by turning to open source alternatives instead of using expensive licensed products. In this "Saving money with open source" series, learn about three open source alternatives: Ubuntu for the operating system, OpenOffice for the office application suite, and OpenChange for the Exchange groupware server. This first article explores the Ubuntu Linux® operating system and how it can help you save money by providing an excellent alternative on the desktop.