In an organisation that is not a development house, and yet wants to provide chat, the free IRCd costs more money then of the shelf product, as you have to have a C or C++ programmer on staff or contract.
It is true the feature sets may be comparable to some degree. The total cost of ownership is not.
CR's skinnable Java applet has no equal out there. I can serve each commercial client a chat applet matching their colours, logos, watermarks, and other design components all without a single line of code. I won't mention the applet services integration that is only possible in a Applet + IRCd bundle coming out from a single company.
In short both free and commercial IRCd prducts have their place and purpose. It all depends on intended use.
