General Motors vs Microsoft

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer
industry with the auto industry and stated "if GM had kept up with the
technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars
that got 1,000 miles to the gallon." In response to Bill’s comments, General
Motors issued a press release stating, If GM had developed technology like
Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:
1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new
car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have
to pull over to the side of the road, close all the windows, shut off the car,
restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason
you would simply accept this.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car
to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall
the engine.

5. Only one person at a time could use the car unless you bought "CarNT", but
then you would have to buy more seats.
1. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five
times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would only run on five percent
of the roads.
7. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be
replaced by a single "General Protection Fault" warning light.

8. New seats would force everyone to have the same sized butt.

9. The airbag system would ask "are you sure?" before deploying.

10. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and
refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned
the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

11. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Rand

McNally road maps (Now a GM subsidiary), even though they neither

need nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause
the cars performance to diminish by 50% or more.

Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice Dept.

12. Every time GM introduced a new car, car buyers would have to learn to drive
all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as
the old car.

13. You’d have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.


VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask]  In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
 VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html