Intranet software and the content of application files

Is this a boundary too far?

We are being asked by a major potential customer to change the content of binary application files as part of our document versioning control.

This is just something that is singularly inappropriate for Claromentis. If you need to change the content of an Adobe file, or Word, for example – use their applications. They know how to do this, and future versions and releases won’t break. Of course we can hack it – we can do anything, more or less. But what is the point? If you need to track the changes of a word file, use word’s track changes. It is very detailed and it works perfectly. If we manage that file for you – we version it and distribute it through your permissioned users – you have what you need.

Our client base around the world is full of intelligence and sparkle. They are trying to use Claromentis as a collaboration framework to make a difference to the way they do business. But when companies ask us to hack binary files, the answer is just ‘no’ – that is not what Claromentis does!

Interestingly these requests come from potential customers, not real ones. There might be a some message in there..