How do you find out the current IT strategy and current IT
architecute/landscape of a large futune 500 company future without
having access to internal documents or staff

Almost certainly impossible unless you are in an inner core of a small
group of people who shape strategy policy. This  would typically
include the CEO ,CFO and CIO.
Quite often the CIO would have the least influence.

Much of the thinking tends these days to be very "High level" i.e.
what third world country is it cheapest to oursource to "increase
profits"

Back in the good old days much of the strategy thinking came from
within the IT/IS department with a good IS director/IS VP/CIO been
able to sell the ideas to the top evecutives. Because the ideas
/strategy came from those within the IS department with an intimate
knowledge of how both the Business operated and Information services
operated , strategies agreed upon and implemented added much value to
the company. These strategies often contained many innovative ideas
which made the business more profitable and the operation of the
business easier and less error free.

Now no longer. Some IT departments in heavily outsourced companies
have been reduced to a group of "Delivery Managers" who sit on their
perches issuing instructions to their various outsourcing vendors and
continually barking at them for not meeting SLAs (Service Level
Agreements)

Because of the entire outsourcing lark , executives of large comapnies
have abdicted/abandoned their responcibility for running an effective
Information Technology department.

Unless someone in an organisation writes a diary about how the IT
strategy is been discussed , it is unlikely you will find a good
account of how IT strategy has been shaped in any private organisation
even years after the fact.

You may however be interested in some of the incredible "cock-ups" for
some of the major departments in the UK most of which have involved
the major Oursourcer  EDI.
  
Three of these examples are as follows:
- The Child Benefits system.
- The "new" passport system (This happened around 1997 to 1999)
- Air Traffic control system at Heathrow.

Regards

Mongolia

For Major Departments in the UK, I meant major government departments in the UK.

Mongolia

tinker2-ga

mongolia-ga is correct in the respect that 'knowing' the intimate
details of any element of corporate strategy unless you are in the
'core' of that large company is impossible (in the sense that it is
not published under any public company declaration law).

However, much can be learned from the SEC filings for large companies
and their reports to share holders to whom they MUST report. The
detail of this information can vary depending on the nature of
business.

These reports are free and readily available from a given copmpanys
web site, usually under 'investor relations' or similiar.

affordablemagic-ga