Shakespeare made up his own words – perhaps that’s why he’s Shakespeare.

But do tech companies – even companies as prolific as Microsoft – have the right to term their own phrases and terminology?

In practice, it seems so – take Google (News - Alert), for example. To “Google” in all of its participles and tenses has become part of the grand tradition of words featured in the English rolodex.

And if Google can do it, so can Microsoft (News - Alert).

That’s why the phrase “dogfooding” is emerging out on the world stage.

Thanks to a recent article featured in Computerworld, we get some insight into the lingo the software giant harnesses in its day to day operations.

What does “dogfooding” mean? Essentially that if you’re a tech company making tech products that you should… well... utilize your own products in your daily business operations. Which makes sense, even from a mere cost-effectiveness perspective.

Dogfooding is the ability to personally use all of Microsoft's technologies, including its cloud products – and Microsoft internally calls this "eating your own dog food."

And it makes even more sense when your company is producing technology at the edge of the fold.

According to officials speaking at the Gartner (News - Alert) Symposium, despite the complexity of Microsoft’s cloud offerings, the company has “one of the most visionary and complete views of the cloud.”

And the virtualization elements go further than that. Recently, at Microsoft's PDC (Professional Developers Conference) event in Redmond, the company stirred the Windows Azure pot by announcing new virtualization capabilities designed to entice developers.

Microsoft isn’t being shy about the development of its new products – or of its internal embracing thereof.

According to an interview with CIO.com's Shane O'Neill, Microsoft's CIO Tony Scott discussed several of the optimal business practices for CIOs that he's learned from "dogfooding" Windows Azure.

Specifically?

Scott said, “Our role at Microsoft IT is to dogfood all our own products, so we started by moving some basic apps to Azure. This was two years ago, before the product was released to the public. We were just getting our feet wet, and I saw some healthy skepticism at the time even in my own organization.”

Hope they towel their feet off before going back into the house!