bill gates vs general motors

[killkoy]

youve probably already seen this but i foound it funny

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 cars that get 1,000 to the gallon."

In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release (From Mr. Welch himself): "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 on the road, you would have to buy a new car.
3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would just accept this, restart and drive on.
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 "Car95" or "CarNT." But then you would have to buy more seats.
6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, 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 be replaced by a single "general car fault" warning light.
8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.
9. The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.
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 grab hold of the radio antenna.
11. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Ran McNally Road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50% or more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice Department.
12. Every time GM introduced a new model, 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.
13. You'd press the "start" button to shut off the engine.

[Michael]

In other news, the spice girls have recently split up.

[Michael]

Rumour has it WWII is imminent, stock plenty of food!

[Michael]

Seriously though, 1997 called. It wants it's chainmail back.

http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache...en&lr=&strip=1

[shiato storm]

no? really, I thought they just put up some new fangled pyramid-type thingys down east and south a bit...

[Gipo]

harsh, but it is old... although I had forgotten this stuff

[Matt1eD]

LMFAO, classic

[Ferral]

Never seen that before at all and I've been doing PC stuff for over 10 yrs now !

[autopilot]

Classic. Still bang on 8 years on and probably for another 8!

[Nick]

It's amazing what the Babbage engine turns out....

[Howard]

[autopilot]

^ Isnt that Chris Eubank?

[|Dan|]

Jokes sometimes take the long way around on their journeys from mere humor to "this really happened" tales.

The basic premise of this gag — the computer industry's touting advances in computing technology by comparing them to the automotive industry is met by a stinging rejoinder from car manufacturers — began life as a mere three-line joke at least as far back as early 1997:
There's word in business circles that the computer industry likes to measure itself against the Big Three auto-makers. The comparison goes this way: If automotive technology had kept pace with Silicon Valley, motorists could buy a V-32 engine that goes 10,000 m.p.h. or a 30-pound car that gets 1,000 miles to the gallon — either one at a sticker price of less than $ 50. Detroit's response: "OK. But who would want a car that crashes twice a day?"
As typically happens in the urban legend cycle, within months a generic tale that invoked types of businesses had been transformed into a version that attributed it to the biggest and most well-known corporate representatives of those businesses: "the computer industry" became Bill Gates of Microsoft, and "Detroit" was replaced with "General Motors":
At a 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 twenty-five dollar cars that got 1000 miles/gallon." Recently General Motors addressed this comment by releasing the statement : "Yeah, but would you want your car to crash twice a day?"
By 1998, someone had taken the evolving joke and tacked on a list of humorous comparisons between Microsoft software and the auto industry, one which played on consumer perceptions of Microsoft as a greedy, rapacious producer of flawed software incompatible with other vendors' products:
At a recent 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 twenty-five dollar cars that got 1,000 miles per gallon."

Recently General Motors addressed this comment by releasing the statement: "Yes, but would you want your car to crash twice a day?"

What's scarier is that if Microsoft had gone into automobile manufacturing and dominated the industry as they normally do, then we'd have to deal with the following:

Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to buy a new car.

Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would just accept this, restart and drive on.

Occasionally, executing a maneuver would cause your car to stop and fail and you would have to re-install the engine. For some strange reason, you would accept this too.

You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you bought Car95 or CarNT. But, then you would have to buy more seats.

Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast, twice as easy to drive - but would only run on 5 percent of the roads.

The Macintosh car owners would get expensive Microsoft upgrades to their cars, which would make their cars run much slower.

The oil, gas and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single "general car default" warning light.

New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.

The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.

If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what happened.
These "even scarier" thoughts were formalized into a numbered list of points General Motors should have made in their imaginary press release issued in response to an apocryphal Bill Gates comment:
In response to Bill's comments, General Motors should have issued a press release stating: "If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:
And from there it was a short step to: "Here's what the CEO of General Motors himself actually said in press release":
In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release (by Mr. Welch himself) stating: If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:
(Actually, Jack Welch was the chairman of General Electric, not General Motors. The chairman of General Motors was Jack Smith.)

Although this piece now circulates as a "true" story complete with specific details of person and place, it's still nothing more than an evolving joke that someone decided would be funnier if it were put in the mouth of a real, well-known person.

http://www.snopes.com/humor/jokes/autos.asp

[steve threlfall]

youve probably already seen this but i found it funny

I had but it made me laugh again

[Konan555]

7. The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single "general car fault" warning light.

ermmmm

[|Dan|]

My 205 has one of them ;(