Unveiling the influence of open source and co-creation: The transformative effect of the open compute project on the data centre market

This research explores the impact of open innovation and co-creation processes on the development of digital technologies and new digital products/services. In this context, the study aims to thoroughly examine the transformative role of the Open Compute Project (OCP) in the data center market. By adopting principles of open source and co-creation, OCP has reshaped data center technologies with innovative and functional products. However, there is a lack of literature on OCP's market impact. Given this gap, this thesis aims to contribute to the literature through elite in-depth interviews. The findings indicate that OCP's market awareness is low. Therefore, it is suggested to examine hardware-dependent and hardware-independent digital ecosystem clusters through cloud computing business models to identify participants' ICT needs. This approach could serve as a valuable tool for the future of OCP and the open innovation ecosystem. Moreover, data collected through semi-structured interviews highlight OCP's impact on innovation and product development.