This IDC study presents the findings of IDC's AppStats Survey 4Q06. Findings reported here focus on adoption of open source software applications. To the extent that customers are looking for "good enough" software applications and suites of applications, open source software may be seen by some customers as a viable option for their business process automation needs.

IDC offers the following guidance for software vendors:

• For vendors interested in supplying open source software applications, focus on developing the infrastructure and relationships necessary to support all aspects of professional customer fulfillment.
• For traditional application software vendors, keep a close watch on your customer base to identify trigger points that will cause them to convert open source software research into trial and implementation. Also investigate opportunities to leverage open source software in your own product offerings to address these trigger points.

"Customer adoption of open source software is moving up the software stack," says Matthew Lawton, IDC's program director of Open Source Software Business Models. "But be wary of grandiose claims of application downloads. The majority of IT customers currently have no plans for open source software applications. IDC will refine our research to track changes over time in the breadth and depth of customer adoption of open source software."