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Many organizations' decisions are affected by their customers. I have worked in many places where Word was the official tool because customers demanded documents in Word format, and file sharing was central to the business.
OTOH, these days, it's more common to find good conversion tools; FrameMaker saves in rtf format, which is readable by Word. (Formatting, however, is a different matter.)
As an individual, I agree I have the choice whether or not to work for a company that forces me to use Word. I only need to weigh my personal preferences against potential income. The company, however, has more factors to consider when making its decision. Budget is another consideration: certain small companies cannot afford to make the change from one documentation tool to another one, even if we can prove that the other, new, tool would be far superior.
In some cases, when a small company has a big customer, it might be told what decisions to make, or risk losing the big customer. There again, it's a choice, albeit more like a Hobson's choice.
Anita
-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Plato [mailto:gilliankitty -at- yahoo -dot- com]
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2003 1:14 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: RE: Adobe adds product activation
How is any organization TOLD what decisions to make? Furthermore, if your
employer is making software decisions that offend you, then you have the
freedom to quit and find work with an organization that more appropriately
suits your needs.
Nobody in the entire universe is FORCED to use Microsoft or any other
technology. You have ample freedom to chose. The fact that some of the
consequences of that choice are lame, is not Microsoft's problem. Perhaps the
reason there are no other good choices is because - gasp - Microsoft actually
makes a good product.
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