A vendor sent me a document that my Office would not open. They said they did it in OpenOffice. I replied that I was going with a vendor that could afford to purchase software.
I bet that gave you warm and fuzzies didn't it? No matter the quality of their product, they didn't use your favorite apps. Considering how often I've received documents that wouldn't open properly even though they were created in the same apps I have on my machine, I'd let it slide and ask them to check the format or version. Every time MS changes file formats, I have to wade through this even though *I'm* using Office as well, just an older version.
Then there was the time I had to upgrade to a newer version of Acrobat to read a vendor document...
Chris
No, they didn't use the STANDARD apps, and really, if an enterprise can't purchase the standard business software, how much faith does it give me in their financial stability? I don't want to call in the middle of a contract and get "We're sorry, this number is not..."
I considered it a prudent business decision, as I did not want to deal with the hassle of recieving documents that I couldn't open easily, and it didn't give me faith in their financial stability as a company. That's all.
Like it or not, Word, Excel and Powerpoint are the standard front office business suite. And if something can't be opened by it, it's a problem!
Acrobat, on the other hand, is an unfortunately entrenched piece of crap with a bloated, crashy reader.