pedigree

This term was used widely when I joined Microsoft back in 1997 and though it’s still used now, I hear it less. Not to say we don’t do what the term embodies so it was great to see RWW include it in their WTF? Origins of Five Popular Web 2.0 Terms as I always knew the folklore of the phrase but they’ve now cleared it up once and for all.

 

Eating Our Own Dogfood

You often hear about technology companies "eating their own dogfood," which means using their own software to get work done. According to the book Inside Out: Microsoft in Our Own Words, the phrase came from Microsoft's Paul Maritz. Maritz had seen an Alpo dog food commercial where actor Lorne Greene told viewers that Alpo was so good he...fed it to his own dogs! Neither Greene nor Maritz apparently ate dogfood themselves, but Maritz did use the phrase in an email calling for Microsoft workers to use their own products more.

 

Tasty eh.