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 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 have to pay for it anyway.
Toaster'95 would weigh 15,000 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 nonethelesds 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 about 5 years
earlier. The toast would make a little smiley face at you when it popped up,
or else it would get stuck and there would be a little picture of a bomb
burned onto it. If they break, these toasters would require a special set of
MacToaster Tools to even open up. Worldwide market share would only be 5%,
but all the bread in school lunches would be exclusively toasted on the
MacToaster.
If the NeXT Corporation made toasters
-----
It would be a large, perfectly smooth, and seamless black cube. Every
morning there would be a piece of toast on top of it. Their service
department would have an unlisted phone number, and th4e blueprints for the
box would be highly classified government documents. The X-Files would have
an episode about it.
If Hewlett-Packard made toasters
-----
They would market the Reverse Polish Toaster, which takes in toast and gives
you regular bread.
