Your Toast!
If IBM made toasters...
It would have one big toaster at a location where people could bring bread to be submitted for overnight toasting. IBM would claim a worldwide market for five, maybe six toasters.
If Microsoft made toasters...
Every time you bought a loaf of bread, you would have to buy a Microsoft toaster. You wouldn't have to take the toaster, but you'd still have to pay for it anyway. Its Toaster '98 and its new Toaster 2000 would take up so much counter space in your kitchen that you'd have to buy a larger kitchen, plus they would draw enough electricity to power a small city. Both models would claim to be the first toaster that let you control how light or dark you want your toast to be, and would secretly interrogate your other appliances to find out who made them. If the appliances were made by another company, the Microsoft toaster would send a signal through the electric wiring in your house to disable them. Everyone would hate Microsoft toasters, but would buy them anyway since most of the good bread only works with Microsoft toasters. Microsoft would claim that it doesn't have a monopoly on toasters, but stores that sold other toasters would have to pay a lot more for Microsoft's toasters.
If Apple made toasters...
It would do everything the Microsoft toaster does, but five years earlier. It would be available in pastel colors that clash with
everything you own. People who own these toasters would look down on people who owned other toaster brands. They would form small clubs, often called ToasterPeople, and meet regularly to tell each how wonderful they are and how messed up everyone else is.
If Fisher Price made toasters...
"Baby's First Toaster" would have a hand-crank that you turn to toast the bread that pops up like a Jack-In-The-Box. They would be recalled every so often due to parts that fall off and might be accidently swallowed.
If the Rand Corporation made toasters...
It would be a large, perfectly smooth and seamless black cube. Every morning there would be a piece of toast on top of it. Rand's service department would have an unlisted phone number, and the blueprints for the box would be highly classified government documents. The X-Files would have an episode about it.
If the NSA made toasters...
Your toaster would have a secret trap door that only the NSA could access in case its agents needed to get at your toast for reasons of national security.
Does DEC still make toasters?...
DEC made good toasters in the '80s, didn't it? Unfortunately, its countertop models were called ProToasters and toasted bread differently from all the other brands and required that you buy very expensive bread.
If Hewlett-Packard made toasters...
They would market the Reverse Polish Toaster, which takes in toast and gives you regular bread.
If Sony made toasters...
Their Personal Toasting Device, which would be barely larger than the single piece of bread it is meant to toast, could be conveniently attached to your belt.
If the Franklin Mint made toasters...
Every month, you would receive another lovely, hand-colored piece of your authentic, hand-crafted, Civil War-era, pewter toaster.
If Cray made toasters...
They would cost $16 million, but would be faster than any other single-slice toaster in the world.
If Timex made toasters...
They would be cheap, small, quartz-crystal wrist toasters that take a licking and keep on toasting.
If Radio Shack made toasters...
Its sales staff would sell you a toaster, but not know anything about it. Or you could buy all the parts to build your own toaster.
If the Shopping Channel sold toasters...
They would not be available in stores, and if you bought one you would get a free set of Ginsu knives.
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Guns don't kill people, People kill people! Using Guns.
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