Only in immature environments, in which value is clouded in mystery. As for reliability, too often I walk out of a conference room and consider applying for a position at some remote monastery in Nepal. Just reboot the hardware. And scary for your job, too. Finally, let's talk about power.
Powerful software has functionality that is nontrivial.
We'll build it ourselves. Luckily, this particular OLAP vendor had the brains to cut the price by more than 50 percent, but the core issue remains. Pricing, reliability, and functionality are out of balance in products that cater to the Internet environment. As a result, I urge CTOs to be extremely careful when outsourcing. You will overpay, get less functionality than you wished for, or threaten the reliability of your whole Internet infrastructure because of massive module interdependencies between internal and outsourced systems.