In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release (by Mr. Welch himself) stating:
If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:
1. For no reason at all, 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, executing a maneuver such as a left-turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, and you would have to reinstall the engine.
4. When your car died on the freeway for no reason, you would just accept this, restart and drive on.
5. Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought 'Car95' or 'CarNT', and then added more seats.
6. Apple would make a car powered by the sun, reliable, five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would run on only five per cent of the roads.
7. Oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single 'general car default' warning light.
8. New seats would force every-one to have the same size вuтт.
9. The airbag would say 'Are you sure?' before going off.
10. Occasionally, for no reason, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key, and grabbed the radio antenna.
11. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of road maps from Rand-McNally (a subsidiary of GM), even though they neither need them nor want them. Trying to delete this option would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50 per cent or more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice Department.
12. 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.
13. You would press the 'start' button to shut off the engine.
Customer Service Rep: Can you install LOVE?
Customer: I can do that. I'm not very technical, but I think I am ready to install now. What do I do first?
Customer Service Rep: The first step is to open your HEART. Have you located your HEART ma'am?
Customer: Yes I have, but there are several programs running right now. Is it okay to install while they are running?
Customer Service Rep: What programs are running ma'am?
Customer: Let me see.... I have PASTHURT. EXE, LOWESTEEM. EXE, GRUDGE. EXE, and RESENTMENT. COM running right now.
Customer Service Rep: No problem. LOVE will automatically erase PASTHURT. EXE from your current operating system. It may remain in your permanent memory, but it will no longer disrupt other programs. LOVE will eventually overwrite LOWESTEEM. EXE with a module of its own called HIGHESTEEM. EXE. However, you have to completely turn off GRUDGE. EXE and RESENTMENT. COM. Those programs prevent LOVE from being properly installed. Can you turn those off ma'am?
Customer: I don't know how to turn them off. Can you tell me how?
Customer Service Rep: My pleasure. Go to your Start menu and invoke FORGIVENESS. EXE. Do this as many times as necessary until GRUDGE. EXE and RESENTMENT. COM have been completely erased.
Customer: Okay, I'm done. LOVE has started installing itself automatically. Is that normal?
Customer Service Rep: Yes it is. You should receive a message that says it will reinstall for the life of your HEART. Do you see that message?
Customer: Yes I do. Is it completely installed?
Customer Service Rep: Yes, but remember that you have only the base program. You need to begin connecting to other HEARTS in order to get the upgrades.
Customer: Oops... I have an error message already. What should I do?
Customer Service Rep: What does the message say?
Customer: It says "ERROR 412 - PROGRAM NOT RUN ON INTERNAL COMPONENTS". What does that mean?
Customer Service Rep: Don't worry ma'am, that's a common problem. It means that the LOVE program is set up to run on external HEARTS but has not yet been run on your HEART. It is one of those complicated programming things, but in non-technical terms it means you have to "LOVE" your own machine before it can "LOVE” others.
Customer: So what should I do?
Customer Service Rep: Can you find the directory called "SELF-ACCEPTANCE"?
Customer: Yes, I have it.
Customer Service Rep: Excellent, you are getting good at this.
Customer: Thank you.
Customer Service Rep: You're welcome. Click on the following files and then copy them to the "MYHEART" directory: FORGIVESELF. DOC, SELFESTEEM. TXT, REALIZEWORTH. TXT, and GOODNESS. DOC. The system will overwrite any conflicting files and begin patching any faulty programming. Also, you need to delete SELFCRITIC. EXE from all directories, and then empty your recycle bin afterwards to make sure it is completely gone and never comes back.
Customer: Got it. Hey! My HEART is filling up with really neat files. SMILE. MPG is playing on my monitor right now and it shows that WARMTH. COM, PEACE. EXE, and CONTENTMENT. COM are copying themselves all over my HEART!
Customer Service Rep: Then LOVE is installed and running. You should be able to handle it from here. One more thing before I go...
Customer: Yes?
Customer Service Rep: LOVE is freeware. Be sure to give it and its various modules to everybody you meet. They will in turn share it with other people and they will return some really neat modules back to you.
Customer: I will. Thank you for your help.