In the early to mid-90s I saw a lot of strange systems building exercises. Large companies building their own email systems from scratch. Creating their own c

In the early to mid-90s I saw a lot of strange systems building exercises. Large companies building their own email systems from scratch. Creating their own custom Windows widgets. Building their own databases from scratch. At the time IT was more of a white-glove environment. When the only people handling it were the tools makers themselves, a lot would get done by a couple smart people in some nook or cranny of the organization. Of course this didn't last, as state of the art enterprise software eventually over-ran them, and the experts wound up joining software firms.