It is well-known that most software purchased by the typical enterprise is not really 'ready for action'. It requires configuration, tweaking, customization, and especially integration. Proprietary software vendors will argue that by providing well-documented Application Programming Interfaces (or APIs), they are in fact making the process simpler and more robust by allowing system integrators to focus solely on the integration points, and not on the inner workings of the software. But Open Source software may also have well documented APIs, and having the source code to supplement documentation can prove to be enormously helpful.
Knowing this, some organizations choose to maintain and integrate Open Source software instead, particularly as this software bears a certain level of maturity.
By using Open Source software, organizations are 'in-sourcing' some of the costs of quality assurance (which means that Open Source software cannot be considered 'free' to enterprise customers), but they gain a considerable advantage: whereas proprietary vendors would take their own sweet time in producing patches, bug fixes, or new features, now enterprise customers can directly contract with qualified programmers to get the work done on a more immediate schedule.
Transparen's programming team has experience working with Open Office to solve crash conditions, provide end-user support, and data recovery services.
