I don't know, maybe this is the new face of the IT business, but riddle me this: if Operations requires a custom-built closed-source clean-room implementation of an FTP client because "not invented here" is the company religion, do you suppose they are just trying to drive up costs so the department doesn't outsource? I've been sent on a lot of hoop-jumps in my day, but this one, where the client app is used by one or two users for all of 10 days, well, it takes the top honours.