BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk// X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Open Source Software Adoption: Anatomy of Success and Failure - P rofessor Brian Fitzgerald Frederick A Krehbiel II Chair in Innovation in G lobal Business &\; Technology Lero - the Irish Software Engineering Res earch Centre University of Limerick\, Ireland DTSTART:20080305T140000Z DTEND:20080305T150000Z UID:TALK11005@talks.cam.ac.uk CONTACT:Tim Minshall DESCRIPTION:Current estimates suggest widespread adoption of open source s oftware (OSS) in organizations world- wide. However\, the problematic natu re of OSS adoption is readily evidenced in the fairly frequent reports of problems\, unforeseen hold-ups\, and outright abandonment of OSS implement ation over time. This seminar reports the case of an Irish public sector o rganization\, who embarked on the adoption of a range of OSS applications over several years\, some of which have been successfully deployed and rem ain in live use within the organisation\, whereas others\, despite achievi ng high levels of assimilation over a number of years\, have not been ulti mately retained in live use in the organization. Using a longitudinal case study\, we discuss in depth the deployment process for two OSS applicatio ns ¬ the desktop application suite whose deployment was unsuccessful ulti mately\, and the email application which was successfully deployed. To our knowledge\, this is the first such in-depth study into successful and uns uccessful OSS implementation. Given that our study was a longitudinal one in a single organization\, we can control a number of potentially importan t influencing elements which would not be possible if multiple organizatio ns were involved. In particular\, the complex interaction of issues to do with voluntariness of adoption\, image\, trialability and absorptive capac ity were critical influences in the process. LOCATION:Seminar Room A\, Institute for Manufacturing\, Mill Lane\, Cambri dge END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR