The emergence of Linux as an open source operating system for business use over the past decade, and of the WWW as a platform for distributed applications development, has led to the availability of a complete software environment which is open source, and yet robust enough to allow the development of on-line services for SMEs. This paper analyses the various open source options available, and explores the experience of ConnectKey.com in offering a subset of these to Irish SMEs. This NITOURA II project was funded under EU TEN-Telecom