I have seen Excel being used by an insurance actuary and then someone promised that the same equations could be done in a "proper" language and a "proper" client rich application. Over 2 Weeks later 2 developers managed to get the sub 1 second accurate excel spreadsheet calculation to a staggering 10 seconds with bugs in the calculation.

This I say would be typical of many companies where IT tries to gold plate a (*&* and tries to impress the company to justify their budget. It is little surprise that the many business units dont want IT development involved.