John,

In reverse order...no, I wasn't asking you specifically, sorry if you thought I was.

I fail to see any relevance to the MS Word reference. Two very different situations...

About five years ago, more and more people began to notice that clients took a much greater interest in development tools than they did in the 1990's. No question, knowledge of business application, good track record, history of being asked back to the table, etc. are very important and you'll never hear me say anything to the contrary.

But the last 5 years (and even going back further) has seen a shift from functionality to platform. A high level manager may not understand connection pooling, but does understand the value of a technology decision based on market trends, where Microsoft is going, and whether the chosen platform will have an increasing or decreasing # of developers over the next several years....which is ultimately a business decision as well!

I invite others with similar experieces to share what they've seen...

On your first point...you're free to presume what you wish. It was to generate awareness.

Kevin