John Denker is correct that the tech people might be willing to provide
some installation and support of "non-company" software. Our tech folks
are very good at this. The problem is unrealistic faculty who receive
software today and want it installed by tomorrow. Or faculty who hit a
snag today (with non-company software) and expect a solution today.
Our tech folks will give telephone advice today, but if you expect
someone to show up in your office, it may not happen for a day or two.
But that often is not necessary with company software. The tech people
are so experienced with the standard stuff that they can usually fix a
problem over the phone. But if they have never used the software that
is giving me problems, I cannot expect them to solve my problem quickly.
John also makes a good point about storing documents in industry
standard formats. I often do this. However, the documents I have to
convert to Word are the documents that the recipient needs to edit. We
pass a lot of committee documents through e-mail for editing and
comments. Committee editing seems to work well if we all use the same
version of the same word processor.
Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.
Professor of Physics and Chemistry
Chair of Sciences
Bluffton College
Bluffton, OH 45817
(419)-358-3270
edmiston@bluffton.edu