How to use proprietary systems
Despite the availability of Free Software and Open Source Software, the majority of software available to the general user is generally proprietary — most often written for the proprietary Microsoft Windows platform, or the practically proprietary Apple platforms.
While Inode argues that long-term reliance on such closed systems is harmful, it does have a useful and valuable place; short-term solutions to pressing business problems are often addressed first by developers of proprietary software, and you will be expected to pay for the privilege of using these ‘black-box’ systems.
Now, if I.T. is not your core business and you expect it to cost money, this may not be a problem. Just make sure that you retain control of your data at all times. Store data in well-known and preferably publicly documented standard formats (a hint here — for word-processing, that doesn’t include Microsoft’s .doc). Periodically ensure that you can retrieve old data; if you were required to display a contract from the early 1990s, you would be hunting for some software capable of reading the .doc format of the time — Microsoft Word for Windows 2.0. And your copy of Word from Office 2010 won’t do that.
If you can access and process your data with the tools you choose, rather than being forced to continue using a specific piece of software because it is the only method that will unlock your data, then you are beginning to become independent. If you choose to use some proprietary software to access that data, because it has features you value that are not found in Free Software or Open Source Software implementations, then at this stage you know exactly what you are paying for, which should make it a beneficial transaction. You are in control.