Last year I participated in the Open Source Survey ran by The 451 Group, who are well known for their analysis and research technology and business trends. Back in December they emailed me the results of the survey. Unfortunately, it sort of got lost in my mailbox and never had the time to read it. Now, cleaning up the stuff, I came across the PDF file with survey results. While parts of it are rather predictable it is still an interesting read.
Lower cost is still the top reason an organization decides to use open source software, but flexibility has become a more significant factor in recent years, and is now cited as the biggest post-adoption benefit of open source. Meanwhile, vendor lock-in appears to have become less of a concern. With nearly half of our survey respondents citing cost, we believe it will continue to be the leading factor driving consideration of open source. While flexibility, mitigation of vendor lock-in and even reliability will continue to be significant factors, the cost element is reinforced by the time-to-market and time-to-value advantages of open source software.