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This was also a bit of a surprise to us. Not only because of the relatively low mean, but because this question had the greatest skew. It was one of only two questions where each possible response got at least one vote. Answers ranged from "1" all the way to "7".

It's obvious why low price is attractive when considering Open Source software. On the other hand, those that rated "low price" as less appealing shared their thinking in comments like: "You get what you pay for - reasonable pricing is better than free" (senior IT executive from a large not-for-profit foundation) and "free is not necessary, but we do want prices that are fair and where we can get a clear ROI" (e-business executive from a large media company).

What are the implications of price in the battle for market share? Considered in conjunction with Questions 1 and 2 above (i.e., regarding the appeal of features and support) we think the implications are clear. Price may be a differentiator but it will not be the determinant in Open Source software's battle to penetrate the enterprise. Features and support are at least as important, if not more so, than price. Institutional users are simply not willing to sacrifice capabilities and maintainability for saving a few dollars. To be taken seriously Open Source applications must compete to a considerable degree along those dimensions traditionally dominated by proprietary vendors - features and support. We believe this will be a challenge for those applications that get forked too much by competing distributors. They may not be able to sustain an economic base large enough to create compelling features and build a brand.

Question 6: How attractive is the availability of source code? Mean Answer: 4.75.

It was initially disheartening to see the average response to this question as low at it was. Does this mean source code simply isn't that important to many? We believe the answer to that question is no. More likely we did a poor job of asking the right question.

Had we to do the survey over again we'd likely turn this question into two or more that touch on different aspects of the subject. For instance, we might ask something like: "Is the availability of source code attractive to you given your propensity to extend or modify software?" If asked this way we believe the average response would be significantly lower. Why? Few users tinker with source and so availability is of marginal value along that dimension. However, we'd also ask a second question that might go something like: "Is the availability of source code attractive to you in general business terms". The responses to this would probably be much higher. While few users actually expect or want to modify source code, we believe most appreciate the "freedom" it can guarantee. As one respondent said: "we want the assurance of being able to support an application if the vendor leaves."

Question 7: How attractive is the right to redistribute the code to others externally (i.e. commercially)? Mean Answer: 3.91

The overall low attractiveness of the right to redistribute isn't surprising given most of those we surveyed are with organizations whose core business has nothing to do with software. As one succinctly put it, "I don't aspire to being a reseller". Thus, they neither expect to modify code nor will they ever have a need to redistribute it. The few respondents who took the survey that were from IT products and services businesses felt very differently. They greatly value the ability to redistribute code and they want to do so on terms of their choosing - as expressed in Question 4. But again, for most organizations the right to redistribute code is of very low perceived value.

Summary Conclusions:

As a vendor of Open Source software the conclusions we reach can be boiled down to two simple truths.

First, to be considered in the game of enterprise-class software there are antes that must be met. They're called features and support. Like in poker, if you can't "ante up" you won't get in the game. Price may be a powerful differentiator but by itself is not enough. Open Source vendors must make the commitment and find the means to create robust products that stack up along these two critical dimensions.

And second, customers are neither dumb nor blind. They know a lack of features when they see it. They're also not blind to believing that somehow the Open Source label will make missing things like features miraculously appear. At times it seems our community is lulled into believing that the Open Source process by itself magically creates code. And great code at that. It doesn't work that way. Robust features, great UI, documentation etc., all take time, talent, close collaboration, and resources. For Open Source vendors to succeed they need to find just the right mix of attributes to get customers excited and then keep them that way. This is not easy.