Secondly, employee discounts work in some instances but when the toyota is cheaper than the ford even with the employee discount (possibly because of maintenance / less likely to break down) then forcing employees to buy the product has detrimental effects.

What I meant by dog food in the post was the forcing of employees to use products produced by the corporation, strictly in the internet / technology industry but applicable to other production industries.

I think you're on to a few different varieties of dog food here! Aside from sneaking into your neighbour's yard and sampling what's on their plate, consider the following…

The first variety is the bitter type that a company forces an employee eat. At a previous employeer, everyone had the choice of purchasing a laptop of their choice. The various configs, software versions, brands etc caused a logistical nightmare for the IT guys. Having the same food on the same plate creates efficiencies that $hareholder$ like to $ee.

The next has the seductive savoury taste that an employee discount brings. I suspect the hounds at Nissan took advantage of this. I doubt the big dogs would extend an employee discount to a competitive brand.

Ideally, you'd give people who work for the company access to a product being produced but not require them to use it as their SOLE device, give people the option. If users start leaving the other device/service behind that's when you know you have a winner.

Thanks for the youtube link, always good to remember Eddie Murphy at his funniest!

Now bark like a dog, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXfLEoCMO3c

I'm not 100% sure but I suppose Apple is similar, would be interesting to see people using Window's machines in Apple, slightly different when you believe you have a superior product.

The automotive industry is pretty restrictive as well, we used to be in the same building complex as Nissan and there weren't too many non-Nissan cars in the parking spots for that company. The article suggests Ballmer grew up with this mentality from living in Motor City, USA.