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  From: Alan Kennington <akenning@topology.org>
  To  : LinuxSA <linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au>
  Date: Wed, 30 May 2001 15:51:50 +0930

commoditi[sz]ing?

On Wed, May 30, 2001 at 03:21:49PM +0000, James Mclean wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.it.mycareer.com.au/opinion/philipson/2001/05/29/FFXDMMWJANC.html
> 
> What can I say, but this was the best laugh I had all day...
> 
> What a crock.


That article has included the perplexing word "commodity" for
the zillionth time, and I still don't understand how
marketing people use this word.

Could someone please explain it?

I first saw this perplexing usage way back at the time of the
Halloween documents from MS. They referred in negative terms
to "commodity protocols", meaning standard protocols like 
the Internet protocol and HTTP.
But these are free, and I thought that a commodity is something
you pay for.

One of my dictionaries - the nearest to hand - says:

commodity, n.
1. a thing that is of use or advantage
2. an article of trade or commerce

Well, obviously something that is free can't fit under (2),
and surely they are not criticising IP and HTTP for being
of use or advantage.

The article above (which sets 7 cookies!) says this:

"Now the data centre is also commoditising, with 
 just a few operating systems and just a
 few hardware platforms to choose from."

I'm just perplexed.
This word commoditising just doesn't make sense to me.

COuld someone who is skilled in the art of marketing baloney
please explain this are of linguistics to me?

Cheers,
Alan Kennington.

PS. In personal e-mails, please use encryption is you can.
We should all be using it.

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