The thing about a default install of software on every PC is that if there is a problem with IE or Office, anyone in the support team can fix it. If users are given the access to install alternative software such as Firefox or Wordperfect, everyone on the support team needs to know how to support it when it breaks. It may well be that you know how to configure Firefox (or whatever) to work with all the systems IE would be used for (eg proxy server for internet access), but when other people in your department decide they would prefer to use Firefox as well, will you spend all day configuring them all? Someone will have to and it will probably be dumped on IT to support.
If a department wants a new piece of software installing, IT has to check that it works with the default software users would have on their PCs (i.e. IE and Office). If users could install whatever they like on their PCs, new software would have to be tested with every piece of software imaginable to avoid IT being blamed because it doesn't work with Netscape because it is designed to run on IE.
There are reasons for having standard applications that the whole of the support team can install/configure/fix, rather than having an application (that may be easier to use) that is only known by one support person that happens to be on holiday for two weeks when it breaks.
If there is a good case for using a different piece of software then IT really need to know about it before it becomes widespead, so they can have the appropriate training on its use, as it wastes our time and yours having to trawl the internet (or contact the programmers) to figure out how to fix this "unsupported" application.
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Like the sound of an mp3 player getting a paper jam.
The thing about a default install of software on every PC is that if there is a problem with IE or Office, anyone in the support team can fix it. If users are given the access to install alternative software such as Firefox or Wordperfect, everyone on the support team needs to know how to support it when it breaks. It may well be that you know how to configure Firefox (or whatever) to work with all the systems IE would be used for (eg proxy server for internet access), but when other people in your department decide they would prefer to use Firefox as well, will you spend all day configuring them all? Someone will have to and it will probably be dumped on IT to support.
If a department wants a new piece of software installing, IT has to check that it works with the default software users would have on their PCs (i.e. IE and Office). If users could install whatever they like on their PCs, new software would have to be tested with every piece of software imaginable to avoid IT being blamed because it doesn't work with Netscape because it is designed to run on IE. There are reasons for having standard applications that the whole of the support team can install/configure/fix, rather than having an application (that may be easier to use) that is only known by one support person that happens to be on holiday for two weeks when it breaks. If there is a good case for using a different piece of software then IT really need to know about it before it becomes widespead, so they can have the appropriate training on its use, as it wastes our time and yours having to trawl the internet (or contact the programmers) to figure out how to fix this "unsupported" application.