The Adoption of Open Source Desktop Software: A Qualitative Study of Belgian Organizations

More organizations are currently migrating toward open source desktop software (OSDS). However, such migration is complex. More insight into the process will assist decision makers in making a well-informed decision on whether or not to migrate to OSDS and in building a strong business case to support this decision. In this paper, the authors present the results of a qualitative study in seven Belgian organizations and report on why these organizations have adopted OSDS and how the migration was undertaken. These cases represent challenging adoptions of OSDS. Results indicate that providing added value for users can positively influence user perceptions. In addition, the authors found strong empirical support for the guidelines with respect to the migration to OSDS that have been proposed in academic literature.

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