John Varela - OS/2 Shareware BBS - 1:109/347

From inside Microsoft itself, Saturday humor, via the Internet:

Microsoft Climbs into the Driver's Seat

    January 25th, Redmond WA - Marketing representatives from Microsoft
Corporation today announced the Company's new line of high-value sedans
signaling the Corporation's move into automobiles.  Said Bill Gates,
Microsoft CEO, "We feel that consumers are confused by the great variety of
vehicles out there.  Every company offers its own proprietary version of your
basic sedan, but there's no standard, and we intend to change that."

    Microsoft aims to define that standard with their new Redmond[TM] sedan.
The company claims that given the advanced set of state-of-the-art features
in the new model, the Redmond sedan could be the best vehicle available in a
short period of time.  The Redmond features include:

- Room for up to six passengers, although the current version only allows one
    occupant while the car is in motion.  Microsoft claims that this will
    provide greater security for the passenger and vows to introduce a true
    multi-passenger model in Q3.

- Integrated car phone.  The "Redmond" includes a SONY(TM) model TCP-93.
    This model only allows dialing out, so another phone is required if you
    wish to receive calls or communicate with other satisfied "Redmond"
    owners.  Microsoft expects that many third-party vendors will be glad to
    provide this added value.

- Revolutionary cache strategy allowed Microsoft to design the "Redmond" with
    just 3 wheels instead of four.  Microsoft predicts tremendous savings in
    tire replacement.

- No speedometer, odometer, or gas gauge.  Microsoft stated that it can
    deliver a higher-quality product by leaving off these frills in the
    initial offering.  Industry analysts suggest this could also provide jobs
    for an enterprising third party market.

- An early prototype of the "Redmond" (code-named "Pong") had an obvious
    disadvantage of only supporting left turns.  The production-ready
    "Redmond" instead offers revolutionary control-preserving but control-
    insensitive steering.  The steering column and directional signals allow
    you to signal and turn in either direction, and while the car "remembers"
    the direction you turned, it translates this into a left turn
    automatically.  "This is great news for people who always confuse left
    and right, and Microsoft provides a complimentary map of your town to aid
    you in finding paths that only include left turns," explained Gates.

- For the more conservative driver, Microsoft has dazzled industry critics by
    providing an AmeriDrive[TM] console.  This console allows the "Redmond"
    to be driven as any other American car.  The console currently supports
    the only available standards document (1.7b), and some minor features
    such as acceleration, steering, and braking are not fully supported.
    Microsoft fully stands behind AmeriDrive and maintains that it is "not
    just a check-box" item for compatibility's sake.

{Additional material - From: Rod Wright  To: John Varela}

    The Microsoft Redmond car, however, would not provide "Crash Protection"
as they feel that the average user does not need such frills.  They point to
the lack of success of OS/2 with its built-in crash protection as proof that
the public cares not about such matters.

    Microsoft also denies that the sluggish performance of the Redmond
prototype is related to its use of Windows as the control system in the
on-board computer.  Independent sources indicate that alpha models have
trouble running the engine at the same time as making left turns.  Their
analysis shows that the software to perform the left turns does not return
control to Windows as is expected in such a cooperative environment.  This
journal recently was given a "sneak preview" of the Redmond and was impressed
by how well it looked.  The Microsoft sources indicated that the ability to
carry cargo in the trunk at the same time as passengers are aboard is being
planned for a future version but may not be in the initial shipping version.

    On Wednesday, Steve Balmer of Microsoft gave the keynote speech to the
American to the Society of American Engineers conference describing
Microsoft's "vision" of the new era of automotive excellence.  He claimed
that anyone buying a car today is buying into obsolete technology.  Informed
users are waiting for the production version of the Redmond sedan which is
due out "next year".  He claimed it will make all existing cars obsolete due
to its V-7 engine.  Industry analysts were briefed by Microsoft who claimed
that IBM would no longer be given access to the code for Microsoft's Windows
for the Beltway and Windows for Truckers code and therefore could not operate
on Microsoft standard highways.

*EOF(MS_SEDAN.TXT)
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