This piece is a few years old, and it talks about how quality has become more important at many large software vendors. Looking back across the five years since the article was written, do you agree?
For the IT departments of large publicly traded US corporations, one development of the past few years are the new SOX regulations. The emphasis on process, seperation of duties is now required. Also, the growing number of software vendors who provide service oriented architecture to external clients kow they are held to a higher level of scrutiny. It's a lot easier to say "Oops! Let me fix that." to an internal client than an external client or auditor.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho