"There's no vendor lock-in [so] if the system allows us to move then we don't hold up the business," he said. "And you have access to the source code so you can fix the problem yourself if it's important to you. Open source projects often accept these updates."

Contrary to the popular believe that there is a lack of support for open source software, Smith said support is good because if you are trying to support a system and getting no where "you just find someone else". UCW has Sydney-based open source consulting firm Solutions First as a support and services provider, which Smith said has "a bunch of smart people we can call upon".

Other benefits Smith cited are the ability to see bugs and solutions up-front, and flexibility of use and no "annoying licensing restrictions to deal with".

"We have been using open source for a long time and it is best of breed," he said.

In addition to using PostgreSQL and Ubuntu Linux, UCW uses a smorgasbord of open source tools including Xen for virtualization, Postfix for e-mail, Samba for file serving, and JBoss for application serving.