CTO Skip Angel recently shared on his blog Random Thoughts from a CTO his experiences with the adoption of open-source software in a corporate environment. I can attest to the superiority of open-source after working over the last year with phpBB (a bulletin-board), osCommerce (an e-commerce online store) and WordPress (a publishing platform, aka blog). All of them are free, endlessly customizable, with ample online support.

Here goes his list:

• “Lower costs…Open source has been practically free or at least lower initial cost, and you don’t have to pay addition money for major upgrades…
• More frequent updates…
• Larger developer base…
• Better response…Open source seems to almost encourage feedback, and you can find or get the answers you need quickly…
• More flexibility…Open source seems to thrive on providing lots of bells, whistles, and options…
• Better extensibility - With commercial software, you are pretty much stuck with the functionality you get until the next major release…Open source, on the other hand, seems to provide extensibility out of the box. You can find plenty of plug-ins.