Sure I was assuming it wasn't a 1 year outlay. Still, even over several years that's a lot for just software - you're talking about $250M/year in development co

Sure I was assuming it wasn't a 1 year outlay. Still, even over several years that's a lot for just software - you're talking about $250M/year in development costs split over 4 years across 600 developers. I'm assuming the bulk of that cost must have been a HW rearchitecture though right and you don't have 600 people trying simultaneously to do a rewrite? Either that or someone was significantly overpaying consultants on the project. It seems suspect to me is all; the repayment time on $1B from a rewrite of an existing software stack isn't generally huge unless it also enabled adding new features that weren't possible before which enabled significant new revenue streams that justify that $1B outlay.