As companies seek to reduce costs, they're finding the ads that come with free online applications aren't the barrier to use they once were, reports the Wall Street Journal.
Free online applications, long popular with everyday online users, are now making inroads at companies looking to offload support costs and use less clunky software packages. So the online apps, which are hosted elsewhere and aren't filled with rarely used features, are becoming attractive, especially with small businesses.

The catch is that the applications are mostly ad-supported. Conventional wisdom once held that that would stop businesses from using them, but that's no longer the case. In addition to smaller players, big companies like Google and Microsoft now offer such software.

For advertisers this means exposure to a business-oriented audience, and for businesses that means exposure to ads that are sometimes useful.

Some are still concerned about contextual ads being delivered, since that means the hosting company has scanned a business document. To alleviate that problem, some software providers offer premium, ad-free versions.