What if___________ toasters? If IBM made a toaster,

What if___________ toasters?

If IBM made a toaster, it would be big and blue and they would make
just one toaster to which people would submit bread for overnight
toasting. IBM would project an eventual worldwide market of, oh, maybe
five or six of these big blue toasters.

If MICROSOFT made toasters, you would have to buy a toaster every time
you bought a loaf of bread. The new TOASTER '95 would be overpriced,
would take up 95% of your kitchen space, would secretly interrogate
your other appliances to find out who made them and if you are the
rightful owner, and would then falsely claim to be the very first
toaster that lets you control the darkness of your toast. Everyone
would hate MICROSOFT toasters, but would buy them anyway because most
of the good bread will work only with their TOASTER '95. Additionally,
once you have a TOASTER '95, it's nearly impossible to get rid of it.

If RADIO SHACK made toasters, their sales associates would try to sell
you the entire store-full, but would be able to tell you nothing about
any of them . . . and would get angry if you asked. You could also buy
the toaster in individually plastic bagged pieces for assembly yourself
. . . but you would have to go to at least six stores for all of the
essential pieces.

If POPULAR SCIENCE made toasters, they would be highlighted as a
continuing feature article for several months running and be so
complicated and impractical that only the author would ever think about
making one. The Government would be petitioned to create an Incentive
Toasting scheme . .