JoeReal

Gates vs. GM

For all of us who feel only the deepest love and affection for the way computers have enhanced our lives, read on.

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 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 (and I just love this part):

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 to the side of the road, close all of 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. 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 run on only five percent of the roads.
   
6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" warning light.
   
7. The airbag system would ask "Are you sure?" before deploying.
   
8. 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.
   
9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car except for one button described in feature 10.
   
10. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.

Please share this with your friends who love - but sometimes hate - their computer!

momoese

Owning both Mac and PC I can see the humor in this!

MediaHound

lol

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chong

Personally, I'm with Bill Gates on this. I'm sure he was at least half serious about his statement. I remember when a PC cost close to $10,000 and it had dual floppies! An IBM 360 mainframe computer set-up with 16K!!! RAM cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and we could not even run a payroll routine with it for more than 10 people. And you had to have those punch card operators to input your programs and data, not to mention the computer operators to look after the system 24/7. So, I think Bill has the right to say what he said.

They can joke about it, but seems to me, GM sounds like "sour grapes".