I’m all for dogfooding but not at the expense of deep competitive research. Sometimes you just have to live with your competitors’ products in order to understand them the way their customers do. I guess now that Bill Gates is focused on the foundation he is no longer interested in deeply understanding Microsoft competitors’ products. No other way to describe why iPhones and iPods are banned in the Gates household. What better way to learn about your competitors’ secret sauce than watch how your kids use their products?