Sorry for posting anonymously, but you'll understand when you read on.

I am working as a consultant in such an environment.

My course of action when I started my first project with the company was to give advice on The Right Tools to use for the job at hand, and they did not listen to me. As a result, I got paid to do something I didn't like, without the level of confidence that I would have had if I were allowed to use my tools, and without that kind of personal satisfaction that comes from knowing that a good app is (at least partially) obtained from your suggestion.

But I learned my lesson, and when the next project started, instead of simply proposing The Right Tool I wrote a nice presentation with fancy colors, got a fancy name out of the top of my head, and sold the company a Perl wrap that I wrote around the right tool. This way, I had the confidence of the tool, the satisfaction of being part of the decision making chain, and a bunch of money more than my usual fee. (You can't just sell Open Source for peanuts, because the management does not take you seriously; but if you charge them an outrageous amount for something that they could find in SourceForge, they usually go for it). I had even the guts of releasing my wrapper under the Artistic License.

Perhaps this approach does not apply to every company, but the next time you are in a position of proposing a solution, keep this story in mind.

Anonymous Saint