Open to question [analysis]

Open source software adoption in enterprise computing is growing but this does not mean that it is suitable for every enterprise. E&T considers some reasons to stick with the 'closed source' model. Open source and commercial software are of about the same quality, and able to achieve similar results.User training, the hardware the products run on, and support staff all have a tangible cost; and in even a medium-sized organisations the volume discounts and site licences that are available from software vendors bring the purchase price of commercial software down significantly from the official list-price. The physical cost of providing a software product to an organisation is no more than a few pounds for a manual and a CD, which means that the vendor of commercial software can discount as far as they wish (or, more accurately, feel necessary) in order to secure a sale. It's also common to offer discounts to get a foot in the door; once a vendor has persuaded a client to adopt its product, the cost and effort of moving away either to a competitor product or an open source rival can far outweigh the benefits of adopting that alternative product.