MICROSOFT VS. GENERAL MOTORS


Bill Gates wanted to look good and impress everyone with his success. He decided to measure Microsoft's accomplishments against General Motors. His comparison went like this: If the automotive technology had kept pace with computer technology over the past few decades, you would now be driving a V-32 instead of a V8, and it would have a top speed of 100,000 miles per hour (160,000 km/hr). Or you could have an economy car that weighs 30 pounds (14 kilos) and gets 1,000 miles/1.6K kilometers to the imperial gallon of gasoline. In either case, the price of the new car would be less than $50.00.

In response to Gates' goading, a GM spokesman said: "Yes, but would you really want to drive a car that crashes 4 times a day?"

GM said that if Microsoft built cars:

1.          Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you'd have to buy a new car.

2.          Occasionally, your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you'd have to restart it. For some strange reason, you'd just accept this and drive on.

3.          Occasionally, your car would stop and fail to restart, and you'd have to reinstall the engine. For some reason, you'd just have to accept this, too.

4.          You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you bought a Car95 or CarNT. But then you'd have to buy more seats.

5.          Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was twice as fast, twice as easy to drive – but would only run on 5 percent of the roads.

6.          Macintosh car owners would get expensive Microsoft upgrades to their cars, which would make their cars run much slower.

7.          The oil, engine, gas and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single "general car fault" warning light.

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

9.          The airbag system would ask, "Are you sure?" before going off.

10.          If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what happened.