Pop versus Soda

Body

Well, I'm back from Mexico.

The flight back was uneventful, except for the leg from Houston to Tucson. The lady in the window seat had "overallocated storage" and required a "distance extension" on her safety belt. To accomodate her, her husband and I flipped up the "logical partitions" between the seats, and "compressed" to take up less space to accomodate. Luckily, it was only for two hours.

On the flight to Houston, I was asked what kind of drink I wanted, in Spanish, as the crew were all from Mexico. Here's a quick Spanish lesson:

bebida

this stands for drink in general, and can include liquor and soft drinks

refresco

this stands generically for soft drink. They will often use "Coke" to refer to any cola beverage, regardless of brand.

It is interesting that Spanish language in each country is slightly different. The Mexicans I met with and spoke Spanish to immediately recognized I was from South America, and not from Central America. Likewise, folks in Puerto Rico knew I was from somewhere from South America, and not from Mexico or Central America. In Columbia, Argentina, and even Brazil, my speech is more recognizable as being from Bolivia.

Before IBM got into an OEM agreement with Network Appliance, I used to indicate that EMC and NetApp were the "Coke and Pepsi" of the NAS marketplace. IBM had a presence, but it was in the single digits, whereas these two major players had roughly equal marketshare, just as Coke and Pepsi dominate equally the US marketplace. That analogy doesn't work in other countries, as in some cases the country might be more heavily in favor of one or the other.

On my flight over from Houston to Tucson, however, I was asked what kind of "pop" I wanted. I always say "soda" to refer generically to soft drinks, but realize that others say "pop" instead. Not only can Americans be able to detect what part of the country people are from by accent, but also by the words they use.

Now I see a blog that explores in great detail the issue of Pop vs Soda vs Coke.

So, it looks like I'll need to "retire" my Coke vs. Pepsi analogy, not because their marketshare has changed, but because IBM's parntering with NetApp greatly skews the advantage over EMC.

technorati tags: IBM, Mexico, NAS, OEM, NetApp, EMC, Coke, Pepsi, Bolivia, Pop, Soda