>Perhaps you and I have just coincidently observed two opposite ends of the spectrum every time we have been involved in BIG corporate IT projects, but I think your overall premise is pretty flawed and your fact of life is not accurate across the board.

I have never been involved in a global enterprise project. People I know that managed such projects told me this is how things work.

BIG IT (on less than a global scale) is also beyond my experience. But the "gossip" I shared is not conjecture - it is first hand gossip.

EPS's expertise is at a different point in the infrastructure than the little projects I do. I am not arguing that your experiences and representation of those experiences is anything but first hand. And the "gossip" I injected into the thread was not meant to be a general statement on ALL corporate IT - it is nothing more than gossip!

Are developers at Microsoft corporate IT - or is product development