Toasters...

[Kali]

If IBM made toasters ... They would want one big toaster where people
bring bread to be submitted for overnight toasting. IBM would claim a
worldwide market for five, maybe six toasters.
If Xerox made toasters ... You could toast one-sided or double-sided.
Successive slices would get lighter and lighter. The toaster would jam
your bread for you.
If Oracle made toasters ... They'd claim their toaster was compatible
with all brands and styles of bread, but when you got it home you'd
discover the Bagel Engine was still in development, the Croissant
Extension was three years away, and that indeed the whole appliance
was just blowing smoke.
If Hewlett-Packard made toasters ... They would market the Reverse
Toaster, which takes in toast and gives you regular bread.
If Sony made toasters ... The ToastMan, which would be barely larger
than the single piece of bread it is meant to toast, can be
conveniently attached to your belt.
And, of course: If Microsoft made toasters ... Every time you bought a
loaf of bread, you would have to buy a toaster. You wouldn't have to
take the toaster, but you'd still have to pay for it anyway. Toaster
'95 would weigh 15000 pounds (hence requiring a reinforced steel
countertop), draw enough electricity to power a small city, take up
95% of the space in your kitchen, would claim to be the first toaster
that lets 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. Everyone would hate Microsoft toasters, but nonetheless would
buy them since most of the good bread only works with their toasters.
If Apple made toasters ... It would do everything the Microsoft
toaster does, but 5 years earlier.
If SAP made toasters ... The manual to run the toaster would be
approximately 10,000 pages long. The toaster would come with 2,500
switches which would all have to be set in an exact pattern and in a
precise sequence in order to toast specific kinds of bread. Each
pattern would be established by SAP's experts as the "Best Practices"
method of toasting that kind of bread. It would take a team of basis
and functional contractors about 1 year to configure the toaster in
the best manner and then another 6 months to test it. In the meantime,
your entire family would need to attend extensive training classes on
how to use the new toaster. In order to support end users and
consultants, MIT would establish a list-serv for people to post
questions and answers regarding toaster set-up and operation. Of
course, the online help would randomly pop up in German. But once it
was running, you'd get the best toast in the world!