In 2011 the Dutch Court of Audit released a report on the benefits of using open standards and open source software for government IT, concluding that there were hardly any benefits to be gained. The Court’s underlying research was widely criticized. In this article, the authors analyze the report’s omissions and weaknesses, introduce an economic framework for evaluating standardization, apply that framework to the subject of switching costs, and conclude that the framework, in combination with elements from other existing methodologies, can provide a starting point for more systematically performing international policy research relating to the benefits of open standards.