I don't understand the logic too well either. Somewhere I read that they just didn't like that Dassault (who makes CATIA) was also an aviation competitor?
Is it a management flaw? Is it compatibility issues as in your case? Some software is backward compatible and some are not. Did you say you work on CATIA or AutoCad?
I wonder if some of Airbus's problems aren't due to their stubbornness or some French socialist culture fear of saving face. (I'd glad to be a capitalist, lol).
But Boeing uses the same software too and doesn't seem to mind that Dassault is a competitor in aerospace.
I use AutoCAD Map 2002. It has some extensions for GIS. I have the upgrade to the 2007 version but don't dare install it till we get our current projects finished. At some point I'd really prefer to switch to ArcGIS, but for right now the 2007 version of AutoCAD gives much needed enhancements like being able to print in 16 million colors instead of jut 256. There are various levels of backward compatibility, but my brother and I are very good at finding the features that aren't compatible.