[PakG1]

This is why such swat teams need to be hidden or actively shielded. Motorola's Droid team was completely separate and able to stand on its own feet. The Google Wave team was based in Australia and had its own incentives and structure. Obviously, swat teams are hit and miss like any startup; they're essentially startups within a corporation.

Or you need to be actively shielded. I was part of such a swat team for internal tools in my first job out of university. The IT department did everything possible to kill us, get us fired, etc. We needed support from the CEO down to stay alive. In the days before I came on board, our managers and directors would disguise the team, telling other people, "Ah, they're just business analysts working on miscellaneous stuff. Not important. Ignore them."

[ichattopadhyaya]

I know why Flickr is doing so well. It is shielded and isolated from the rest of its parent organization.