This is a coffee maker - the kind where you slot in a container of coffee and push a button and coffee is produced. Both the coffee-maker and the coffee ground 'pods' are made by the same company, Gevalia.

This is an instance of coupling product (coffee-maker) with service (coffee). Presumably, this could be because:

1. It's an instance of the Gillette razor strategy (make money on the consumables) or,
2. The design of the coffee-maker necessitates the use of their own coffee pods

The consequence of this coupling is that the fate of the product depends on the fate of the company: if it goes out of business, the coffeemaker becomes worthless instantly. It also means that the quality of the coffee experience is entirely dictated by the ability of the manufacturer to procure good coffee and package it well. That is, assuming there are no 3rd party coffeepod manufacturers. Even if there were, they would have to support different manufacturer's coffeemakers to avoid being too tightly coupled to the success of any single one of them.

What these guys need is good standards, same as the web. While tightly coupled systems work in certain cases, loosely coupled systems with standards are more robust when openness of experience is important. In this case, while the institution probably wanted to relieve themselves of the burden of always having fresh coffee ready for it's customers, they did so at the cost of not having any fresh milk (there was creamer) and limiting themselves to the coffee Gevalia decided to provide.

Oh, and the coffee was lousy, needless to say.