I've been recently involved with a software procurement process /rfp recently.
The manager in charge of the process was A LOT more interested in CYA and selecting the product that had the most documentation to defend his choice (Gartner quadrants, other customers, etc.) than in taking risks or actually selecting the "best" product or sticking his neck for whatever he believed the best provider was.
Not unsurprisingly, Oracle and IBM provide a lot of what he needs to show upper management, and so tend to be in the discussion a lot.
You don't have to defend hiring IBM, but you DO have to defend using open source software X with support from local company Y. RedHat and similar do provide a level of "IBM-like" services for large companies, but most open source software doesn't have the support levels and on-site teams required (or sometimes IBM offers those !! Edit: as someone else pointed out, Oracle offers MySQL support too).
smtddr's point about having someone to phone is VERY true for these kind of conservative companies. (also, I've seen the kind of behaviour he documents about people trying to - and succeeding at - claiming credit for projects)
The manager in charge of the process was A LOT more interested in CYA and selecting the product that had the most documentation to defend his choice (Gartner quadrants, other customers, etc.) than in taking risks or actually selecting the "best" product or sticking his neck for whatever he believed the best provider was.
Not unsurprisingly, Oracle and IBM provide a lot of what he needs to show upper management, and so tend to be in the discussion a lot.
You don't have to defend hiring IBM, but you DO have to defend using open source software X with support from local company Y. RedHat and similar do provide a level of "IBM-like" services for large companies, but most open source software doesn't have the support levels and on-site teams required (or sometimes IBM offers those !! Edit: as someone else pointed out, Oracle offers MySQL support too).
smtddr's point about having someone to phone is VERY true for these kind of conservative companies. (also, I've seen the kind of behaviour he documents about people trying to - and succeeding at - claiming credit for projects)