(The one about Microsoft is the funniest, of course....)


IF IBM MADE TOASTERS

If IBM made toasters ...
  They would want one big toaster where people bring bread to be
  submitted for overnight toasting.  IBM would own the worldwide
  market for five, maybe six toasters.

If Sun made toasters ...
  The toast would burn often, but you could get a really good cup o'
  Java.

Does DEC still make toasters?
  They made good toasters in the '80s, didn't they?

If Hewlett-Packard made toasters ...
  They would market the Reverse Polish Toaster (RPT), which takes
  in toast and gives you regular bread.  It would run forever
  without a single service call, but require $100 bread refills
  every 5000 slices.

If Thinking Machines made toasters ...
  You would be able to toast 64,000 pieces of bread at the same time.

If Cray made toasters ...
  They would cost $16 million, but would be faster than any other
  single-slice toaster in the world.


If Sony made toasters ...
  The Toastman, which would be barely larger than the single piece
  of bread it is meant to toast, could be conveniently attached to
  your belt.  Toastman II would redefine toast, shrinking it to
  half it's normal size.  The entire toast industry would follow
  suit.  In six months, normal toast would disappear.


If NeXT made toasters ...
  They would redefine the entire concept of toast, advancing toast
  development light years beyond any other implementation ... but
  nobody would care.

If Microsoft made toasters ...
  Toaster 95 would weigh 1000 pounds (requiring a reinforced
  steel countertop), draw enough electricity to power a small city,
  and consume 60% of the space in your kitchen -- but it would work
  with bread you bought 15 years ago.  Microsoft would claim
  Toaster 95 is the first toaster that lets you control how light
  or dark you want your toast to be.  Every time you made toast,
  the toaster would secretly interrogate your other appliances
  to find out who made them.  Sometimes Toaster 95 would stop
  working right in the middle of making toast, and the toast would
  be ruined.  Microsoft technicians would blame the bread.  IBM and
  Lotus bread would mysteriously fail to toast properly.  Everyone
  would hate Microsoft toasters, but would buy them anyway, since
  most of the bread has been designed around Microsoft's proprietary
  Toaster Development Interface (TDI).  Microsoft's own bread would
  always produce better toast, because it used undocumented TDI
  features.

If Apple made toasters ...
  It would do everything the Microsoft toaster does, and then some,
  10 years earlier.