Ethics
Hats off to all the ethical people on this thread... worthy competitors if we were ever to meet in that context.
I've come across a lot that aren't, mind you. Here's a sample (I might have mentioned this one before, apologies if I have).
My biggest customer in my early days bought all their newer pc's from one of the lower tier manufacturers whose head office was only a few miles away. I would support the equipment they'd purchased from said manufacturer as well as supply other bits and bobs as required. One of the bits and bobs was a Logitech Mouse. In those days configuration involved a diskette (5.25" floppy). Supplied that, configured it and off I went.
Days/weeks later I had a very unhappy customer on the phone "You've given us a virus."
What had happened was that there had been a power surge which had taken out a few bits of electrical equipment, including one of these pc's (on the financial controller's (FC) desk). A guy from the pc manufacturer had gone in, replaced the motherboard in the pc and had suggested doing a virus scan on it using the latest "super duper" virus checker (which he was trying to sell, I can't remember if it was Dr Solomon or MacAfee). Anyway it found a virus and this guy implicated me as having spread it using the mouse software.
I went in and talked to the FC. I knew full well that he locked all disk media I gave to him in his safe. So I asked where the Mouse disk was. In the safe. Has it been outside of the safe since my visit? No. Right, let's do a virus check on it. (No virus found).
So where is the media originally supplied with the pc? In the safe. Has that been taken out the safe since being supplied? No. Right, let's virus check that. (Viruses found).
As the curtain came down the FC was thumping his fist on the desk, "get me that pc supplier on the phone, right now..."
Biting the hand that feeds IT
