>>So when a Fortune 500 Company sends us a $1 million in orders on an Excel spreadsheet, with the EDI orders to follow later, we should tell them we don't support proprietary software? I don't think so! <g>
>
>Like I said, if its important, I'll use one of my Excel viewers. MS makes a read only viewer for both Word and Excel files, 97 and 2000 (haven't needed to look for an XP yet) and they're both free off ms.com.
>


Okay, I'll take it a step further. These same Fortune 500 customers send us spreadsheets (on occasion) and they ask us to fill them in and submit them back to them. Your turn... *grin*

>>Office file formats are a defacto standard, like it or not.
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>Everythings a standard, depends who you ask. If you ask me, proprietary formats are not my standards :-)

I totally understand (and agree with) your point about standards. You seemed to indicate that you would let important business documents from customers hit the trash can rather than deal with them...I'm merely pointing out that business requirements are more important than document standards. We have got to do whatever it takes to make our customers happy. :)

Perhaps you were just trying to make a point. Point taken.