Actually, I am thinking of creating a URL shortener inside my intranet. Here's a purpose that no one's thought of, or at least mentioned: it gives a layer of abstraction. Inside the company they can send emails, or put links on web pages that point to my URL shortener, let's say, "Company Policies". That link will always work no matter if the target web page stays on our legacy ASP system or gets moved to our shiny new Sharepoint. All they have to do to fix thousands of links is update the target in the shortener.

Does anyone know what language this one is in?

I know that this thread is too old for anyone but the author of the parent to read my comment....so this is for you. Having just come off a 2 year project I can say that your comments are the most insightful that I've read in years. Technically the project is only 85% done, but the PM has closed the project so that the deadline is met...all the remaining work is 'phase two'. Of the classic project triangle (Cost, Time, Quality) everything was deemed flexible except Time and Cost.

In defense of our BAs they did a pretty good job asking the users what exactly they would like the soltuion to do. The problem is that the answer the users gave was something like, "I'd like unicorns to dance around my office and sing Ode to Joy. Oh, and if they could fart rainbows that'd be fabulous!"

-Your friendly systems architect

Ok...did it fly to Morocco (impressive), or South Africa (really, really impressive)? Africa isn't a country Ms Palin.