VMware: The World's Busiest PR Team?

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  sbinsider09/13/07 Report as spam
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  Xerox, Kleenex, Coke and now VMWare

  Not sure if there's an official name for this phenomenon - when a company or product name become synonymous with the name of what the product actually is ... Xerox (copying), Kleenex (facial tissue), Coke (cola), and now VMWare (virtualization). Great place to be.

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  gap tooth grin06/26/09 Report as spam
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  RE: VMware: The World's Busiest PR Team?

  i believe the term you're looking for is a synecdoche. the brand name is a synecdoche for the larger idea of the product.
  
  a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part, the special for the general or the general for the special, as in ten sail for ten ships or a Croesus for a rich man.
  
  http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/synecdoche

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  gap tooth grin06/26/09 Report as spam
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  RE: VMware: The World's Busiest PR Team?

  also known as Metonymy or a genericized trademark