"Many small business owners may want to move to Linux for any number of reasons. A large number of them hold back because their business relies on Windows XP Pro or Vista Business to run QuickBooks with Payroll, which has no strong Linux equivalent. Sure, there are accounting applications with Payroll available for GNU/Linux but most accountants that support small businesses only know QuickBooks. To be able to use these accountants the small business owner must use QuickBooks. Running QuickBooks in WINE is not always the best answer as that has its own set of drawbacks.
"Adding to this problem is many small businesses are very small businesses and may only need one computer for the entire business. This one computer must be used for web browsing and e-mail reading. Both of which are major inroads for malware on Microsoft systems. Yet the PC is also used for the accounting of the small business. Accounting data has a great deal of information that may be useful to criminals. However, malware is rife on Microsoft based systems making problematic any accounting data’s safety on a single multi-use Microsoft PC. What is the FOSS loving small business owner to do? Enter Virtualbox for GNU/Linux to the rescue."
