The true cost of OTS, that is ... what OTS truly costs to customers represents a challenge for them. Much like any project or system acquired by customers, in addition to the purchase price of OTS, or cost of acquisition in TCO terms, many other costs are incurred over the OTS lifecycle.
How can customers reduce their costs?
When OTS costs are considered as part of a TCO estimation (Total Cost of Ownership), there are many cost components that come into consideration. In fact, most of the incurred costs may be during the use of the OTS, these are known as operating costs, and if a company trains for example 100 operators over a period of 5 years, the cost of OTS acquisition may  represent only 20% of the TCO.
From the Suppliers' angle, and users' in many cases, the benefits are numerous and outweigh costs. ziconNET is running a survey to get feedback of what users and suppliers think about the cost of OTS. Future surveys on the topic of OTS TCO may in fact reveal ways to reduce TCO and make OTS even more attractive for users.
Visit the OTS Cost Survey page and participate.