If the IT Industry Made Toasters
by Volker Weber
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.
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!
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