Losing to Licensing

Users are becoming intolerant for upwards-spiraling licensing costs, and they should be. With so many good open-source products in production, and even more in development, why do users companies (the end-users) continue to put up with large licensing contracts? As an example, I recently had to quote a Nortel BCM system for a SMB. It’s one thing to consider the hardware costs (proprietary, of course), but the “keycode” mentality is hopefully destined to go by the wayside. Keycodes are necessary, and plenty, for voicemail, TDM ports, expansion modules, SIP trunking, etc. Soon, we’ll need a keycode just to make coffee in the morning. If vendors such as Nortel plan to stay competitve against the open soruce market, why aren’t they adapting their model to be more, well, competitive? My guess is that the large vendor following will continue to enable such licensing schemes. Just picking on Nortel doesn’t seem to be fair, as Cisco and 3com are equally as guilty. When, and if, will this ever change? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Are telecom managers still approving ever-increasing licensing costs to remain with their existing vendors, or is this a catalyst for change to something open-source?