I have been in extremely similar situations, and I will give some insights as to how I have tackled the (people) communication side.

Mr. Unix

At one place, I was hired as a technical consultant for my VMS skills, although I was also a competent and experienced Unix sysadmin. However, when I joined, I was taking a dead man's shoes role of a Mr. VMS. I found my opposite number on the Unix side very reticent and reluctant to divulge information.

This company was a software house, developing and supporting a product that runs on 6 platforms - C source code served out from a VMS box via NFS. When I joined, although there was a single code base, there was no integrated build process across the platforms. I managed to get the ear of the department manager (who was a good chap), and he managed to psychologically beat Mr. Unix over the head and get his cooperation with my integrated builds project.

Tech services team

At the same company, there was also a team of guys who would go out on site doing installations and upgrades. In many ways, they were doing unnecessary work, as they were claiming huge amounts of expenses for working on site. In practice much of what they did could be done using modems.

A programmer colleague attempted to run a project automating the upgrade and install. However, this required the input from tech services. TS were effectively able to stymie and squash the project.

This team of 7 was disbanded 1 1/2 years later, making 3 of them redundant.

Conclusion

Whoever gets the ear of management has the odds in their favour, and if you don't get on with your boss or department head, it may be resume time.

Try and focus on the business aspects of what you are doing. Put together a formal business case, with a cost benefit analysis. If your line manager is any good, he will pass this straight on to senior management, and you may well find you get more support and encouragement than you bargained for!

Also, if you are doing too much support, and would rather be cutting code, why not say so to your boss? Honesty pays here, because should things get worse, at least you have made your opinion clear. Annual review time is a good time to do this.

My $0.02 --rW