Lineo near Death

An anonymous reader notd a bit running on LinuxGram about Lineo about ready to croak. It paints a pretty bleak view of the Linux embedded system company. Oddly enough, I'm still not exactly sure what they were trying to do.

Comments

New Coke

[John Harrison]

Many people fail to understand exactly what it was that Coke pulled off with "New Coke". It seems to me that everyone thinks that the reason was to build marketshare (after the re-introduction of "Coke Classic" it plus "New Coke" had greater market share than Coke had before) or to simply draw attention to the brand.

I suggest a more sinister motive! The three months or so during which there was only "New Coke" allowed Coke to substitute the cane sugar previously used to sweeten Coke with corn syrup. By having a three month "pause" in the consumption of real Coke no direct head to head taste tests of pre-New Coke Coke v. Coke Classic were made. People have an almost religious devotion to Coke. The "New Coke" scandal proved this. However, the scandal was a clever distraction from what was really happening. If you buy a Coke from Mexico and compare it to a USA one you can conduct the test that they never wanted done yourself.

You will find that the Coke from Mexico has a sweet, slightly fruity flavor, compared to the starchy taste of USA Coke Classic. Everyone I have every had do a blind taste test has prefered the Mexican Coke.

So why switch? $$$$$$$$$$$ of course! Corn syrup is cheaper in the USA than cane sugar.

Most other soft drinks in the USA switched as well. You can still order REAL Dr. Pepper from Dublin Dr. Pepper and taste a real soft drink. I have sadly stopped drinking most soft drinks since I noticed that each day at 2 pm I had to have a Dr. Pepper to continue programming. I couldn't think at all. So after a headache-inducing Double Big Gulp in January I stopped cold turkey. The first week was pretty rough, but now I can actually think without resorting to chemical stimulus.

What is the point of this rambling? It is that while people react in a certain way because of "New Coke" they are having EXACTLY THE REACTION THAT THE COCA-COLA CORP WANTS! What they don't want is for you to discover that Coca-Cola Classic is not what you were drinking before "New Coke". Deviously brilliant. And we thought they were soooo stupid at the time.