Rise of the Corporate Skeleton Crew?

Big Stick asks: "Recently I have noticed a trend in several prominent companies in my area of laying off entire technology departments. Just this week in my own company--a division of a well known, mid-sized corporation--the software engineering department was let go en masse, rather than just a reduction in head count. The rationale for the move being that it would be easier to evaluate the potential cost of developing a new product if groups of contractors were hired, instead of the numbers getting lost in the 'free' work of the full time developers. The overall impression this leaves is that many major companies are re-prioritizing the need to innovate new technologies for the presentation of their business, relying on skeleton crews of DBAs/SAs to maintain rather than enhance. The main question this raises is, are we heading towards an era where full time software development is more likely to be housed in technology specific firms? Something along the lines of the construction industry where projects are bid on, constructed, and the involvement of the creators with the finished product is minimal?" If others of you are noticing this trend in the industry, please share your thoughts. Do you think this is a move forward or backwards?