"According to Peter Critchley, strategy director at IT consultancy Morse, the suitability of free or low-cost applications depends largely on how critical they are to the business that uses them.

‘There is a trend for core technology to reduce in price and commoditise to the point where it is free or pseudo-free, or paid for in a different way,’ he says. ‘The limits come down to the business criticality of the application. You might be happy running free web serving or free e-mail, if it would not hurt your business too much if the services are not available.’"

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