What you're saying is true, however from experience as a project manager, that works in multi group projects, this is a VERY typical answer.
I was managing a project for SAP SQL and Oracle, and needed a development server from the server group that was outside the firewall or at least my ip opened because I needed a data feed from Reuters. They said it wasn't possible because they
would have to open the entire server up to the outside (The most uneducated answer I've ever seen)
I also wanted to set up a UBB that I had already purchased through budget for the users to communicate. They said that having the permissions on the ubb folder have read/write access was absolutely impossible because they'd have to open the entire web site up. Sheesh. I simply made a virtual directory paralled (as the instructions suggest) and it sat above the root html dir.
The reason for that LONG and BORING comment is that in MOST cases the inital conversations you'll have will be with people that have a very low knowledge base. Since the majority of helpdesk calls that come in do not require a high knowledge base. You're probably going to have to get to second level support somewhere, but it absolutely can be done. On any web server, any O.S. that is of course assuming they configured the server correctly during the build.
