Business litmus test: eating your own cooking

In my experience, the test of the products a business produces in this navel gazing industry of developing software tools is whether or not the company eats its own cooking. Does a visualization company use its own tools for its employee update meetings? If not, then why not and why isn't it a critical priority item to make sure that the tools are feature rich enough to display what they need to convey and easy enough for the executives and their assistants to use in preparing their talk? Why is it easier for them to use PowerPoint?

Similarily, with software tool companies I find it questionable if a company doesn't use its own tools for development. If you have a specification tool, why aren't you using it? Why are your developers still using other tools to write them up?

If you won't use your own tools then no one else will. While good sales people can sell anything, shelfware is never good. Getting people to use the tools is the only way to ensure a long lasting product from a long lasting company.

Just the opinion of this software developer...