Originally Posted by
Commando Cody
This is anecdotal, but I've seen narratives that said before Defiant, Boeing and Bell discussed partnering on what would become the V-280. When the talks fell through and it was announced that Boeing would not be working with them, Bell engineers cheered.
FWIW
Anecdotally, the opposite was true at Sikorsky when engineers learned they’d be teaming with Boeing on SB>1.