At a recent computer expo, 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 to the gallon."

In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating the following: "If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would 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 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.' Then you would have to buy more seats.
6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was more reliable, five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run on five percent of the roads.
7. UNIX vehicles would be built for drivers by drivers, measure usage in terms of time, be far more reliable, much more secure, you would be able to have it customized just the way you wanted it, its engine would last ten times longer, and would not get as hot or stressed as much due to the relative ease of handling burdensom tasks. You would also get the blueprints and all design data and instructions, and, of course, everything would be free.
8. The oil, water, temperature and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single 'general car fault' warning light.
9. New seats would force everyone to have the same back-end size.
10. The airbag system would say 'Are you sure?' before going off.
11. You would not be aloud to work on it or change anything in any way or manner without paying GM first.
12. You would be subdued by a multitude of annoyances that are present only for the security of GM's profits, which would be top priority over the consumer at all times during development.
13. GM would sue if you talked bad about them.
14. GM would steal all of its technologies from UNIX, and make them all worse and say they made it all from the beginning to make the UNIX vehicles look technologically ancient.
15. 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 grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
16. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50 per cent or more.
17. 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.
18. You would press the 'Start' button to shut off the engine.
19. If you went over the speedlimits (also made by GM through a new subsidiary purchase), you vehicle would crash due to an illegal operation.
20. Sometimes, just a task like turning on the left turnsignal, would cause the vehicle to do and illegal operation and you would be issued a ticket from the police (also a new subsidiary of GM).
21. All the dents and bangs in the vehicle would not be caused by other vehicles, but by the user getting mad at the vehicle for doing what it wanted to do, and not listing to them."