How are hybrid open source firms’ products commercially successful?

Worldwide, software is a multi-billion dollar industry. Firms in this industry are adopting novel business models to increase growth. One such business model is the hybrid Open Source Software (OSS) firm. There is a growing body of research on open-source software business models however little research has looked at the hybrid OSS model. This research-in-progress attempts to shed light on the hybrid OSS product success through the lens of transaction cost economics. Drawing on previous research on software development and OSS, a model of hybrid OSS is proposed. The key contribution of this work will be to more fully understand hybrid OSS firms, the OSS communities of which the firms are a part, and the customers of the hybrid OSS firm