It is a widely accepted principle that open, fair and free competition is desirable in most markets.

Certified Open is designed to help measure and encourage competition through the provision of a framework for evaluating technical and commercial lock-in where that may reduce the ability of suppliers to compete in the provision of software, hardware and services.

Lock-in to a single vendor or single architecture is a long-standing feature of the computing industry. Whether it is good or bad for the customer is for that customer to decide. Certified Open provides a means to detect and measure the lock-in that the customer may incur through the use of particular products. It is then for the customer to decide whether that is a factor to use in making deployment decisions.

Link to Certified Open