When asked by Bitkom about the most important advantage, 17 percent named cost savings because there are no licensing fees. Somewhat further behind were a number of other reasons, such as high security due to timely updates and independence from individual software providers (nine percent each) as well as the wide selection of open source components, access to the source code and simple customizations to the software (seven percent each). Furthermore, open standards (six percent), compatibility with other tools and an active community for knowledge exchange (five percent each) are decisive advantages of open source.

However, eight out of 10 larger companies (79 percent) also see disadvantages when using open source, naming the biggest (12 percent) a of lack skilled workers in the company who can, for example, customize and further develop the software. Additional disadvantages include lack of acceptance in the company (seven percent) as well as the unclear warranty situation, the lack of training courses, the lack of custom solutions, the time-consuming switch from current software to open source, and an overly large and therefore unmanageable selection of open source solutions (six percent each). Five percent also bemoan the high level of training required.

Source: Adobe