Worse, in my view, is the corporate organization (public sector, third sector, private sector) who eschew free or near-free open source solutions in favour of expensive software licences simply because they are unwilling to entertain doing business with any organization or firm other than a "name brand".

This is not merely what the market calls "successful selling" — often, the enterprise software salesperson is pushing on an open door, red carpet rolled out, and bags of enterprise cash ready to dispensed as a "gift" by a manager who is more interested in being a petty potentate dispensing his favours than one that conserves, protects and defends the integrity of his organization.

As far as I'm concerned, in a publicly-traded company, shareholders ought to demand an accounting of procurement practices; in a public-sector organization, citizens likewise; and in a not-for-profit, the donors. Until the money is threatened, the buyers won't change — and until the buyers change, the enterprise software industry won't, either.

This tendency confirms the marketing 'wisdom' that the pricing point determins (or at least heavily influences / acts as a signal for) the perceived value of a product in a potential buyer's mind. Basically, people are both lazy (so take short-cut signals at face value) and insecure (so are unwilling to take a risk on something that is free/cheap and therefore might be (literally) worthless).