To Open Source or not to Open Source: That's the Strategic Question. Results from a Survey Among Eight Leading Software Providers
Maarten Wijnen-Meijer, Ronald S Batenburg · Journal of the Association for Information Systems · 2007
The central goal of this paper is to explore the reasons software providers open source their own proprietary software.This was done by examining the perceived effects of this decision from the viewpoint of the software providers.A substantial number of perceived effects of open sourcing were derived, as well as possibly relevant product characteristics.In face to face interviews with high representatives of eight of the largest software vendors in the Netherlands (Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, SAP, Compuware and Computer Associates), the perceived effects and the actual open source decision of 21 different software products of these companies were queried.Five of these products were indeed open source software.From the interview data it appears that the main effects of open sourcing a software product are perceived to be an increase in product value, possibilities for peer review, user testing, fragmentation and product usage.The greater the perceived effect of open sourcing a product on the profitability and the mobilization of external R&D the more likely a product is to be open sourced.Furthermore, open sourcing seems to be more common for products with a cost leadership strategy than for products with a product leadership strategy.