In an effort to express the accomplishments of Microsoft in
understandable terms, Bill Gates made the following comparison with
General Motors products. He said:"If automotive technology had kept pace
with computer technology over the past few decades, you would now be
driving a V-32 instead of a V-8, and it would have a top speed of 10,000
miles/hour (160,000 km/hr). Or, you could have an economy car that
weighs 10 pounds (14 kilos), and gets a thousand miles to the gallon of
gas. In either case, the sticker on the new car would be less than
$50.00. End of statement."
GM responded by pointing out that, "If GM built cars that operated like
Microsoft products, You'd have a car that crashes 4 times a day. Every
time they repainted the lines on the road, you'd have to buy a new car.
Your car would constantly die on the freeway for no reason, and you
would just accept this as a normal part of operations, and drive on.
Your car would also stop and fail to restart, and you'd have to
reinstall the engine. For some strange reason, you'd just accept this,
too. You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you
bought a Car95, or a CarNT. But, then you'd have to buy more seats.
(Macintosh would be on 5 percent of the roads. Macintosh car owners
could get expensive Microsoft upgrades to their cars, which would make
their cars run much slower.) To continue, the oil, engine, gas, and
alternator warning lights would all be combined into a single "General
Auto Protection Fault" warning light that, when lit, would oblige you to
stop your car in the middle of thhe highway, and restart it. New seats
would force everyone to have the same size butt. If you were involved in
a crash, you would never be able to determine the real cause of the
crash. Finally, the airbag system would ask you to press an "Are you
sure?" button before deploying."
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