IDC Research "The Business Value of IBM Open Source Support" IDC research conducted on a selection of open source software technologies that have commercial support options available, compared the experience customers had when using those open source software technologies both with and without the commercial support. The collection of open source software solutions considered in this research is a suite of technologies for which IBM offers commercial support services. IDC spoke with these customers about how they are using IBM Open Source Support to optimize their use of open source application runtime software, database, and DevOps software solutions and applications. For the study participants (and the industry overall), open source technologies are increasingly important to their overall IT and business strategies, pushing them to find ways to increase both the breadth and depth, as well as the effectiveness, of their use.