[plug] GM and m$

alan howard alanh at wn.com.au
Tue Aug 29 18:05:47 WST 2000


thought some of you may find this humerous

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 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. Only one person at a time could use the car unless you bought
"CarNT", but then you would have to buy more seats.
 6. 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 air bag 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.




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