Mark Arteaga

Check out this article by Joel Spolsky on Good Programmers vs. Cheap Programmers.  He goes through some of the reasons why software companies (not IT shops) need top notch developers/programmers to be successful and most importantly profitable.  Also, check out Eric Sink's related article (written in 2003) on why you need developers and not programmers (again, geared towards ISVs).  I think programmer and developer are interchangeable, but Eric defines what is a developer is (someone who contributes in multiple ways) and what a programmer is (someone who only writes code and sometimes fixes bugs and doesn't do much else).