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Microsoft’s Toyota Letter

Hearing about the Toyota recall and extent to which the company has gone towards compensating Toyota owners makes me wonder what would happen if software manufacturers had to live up to the standards placed on car companies?Imagine, the letter from Microsoft, for that matter, addressing Windows operators (as the PC Guy attempts to shrug off the consolation of his Mac counterpart):Dear Loyal Windows User (they hope!
Written by Dave Greenfield, Contributor

Hearing about the Toyota recall and extent to which the company has gone towards compensating Toyota owners makes me wonder what would happen if software manufacturers had to live up to the standards placed on car companies?

Imagine, the letter from Microsoft, for that matter, addressing Windows operators (as the PC Guy attempts to shrug off the consolation of his Mac counterpart):

Dear Loyal Windows User (they hope!),

Microsoft (MSFT), Inc., has received recent information about repeated customer complaints revolving around the Windows Operating System, which all state that the software causes computer complications, which may result in reduced efficiency and communication problems between computers and external plug-ins (i.e. printers, internets, etcetera).Upon receiving this information, Microsoft immediately went to work to evaluate the situation and interview a selection of the individuals who have filed complaints.

Though, most cases were found to be attributable to other forces (Ha, Ha, Ha!) and the number of complaints accounts for only a fraction of a percentage of the millions of copies of the Windows Operating System now in use, Microsoft takes them extremely seriously.

In order to maintain the trust and loyalty of our customers, Microsoft has opted to recall the Windows Operating System.The system is being fully reviewed for potential points of weakness and a new, updated version will be released to all customers who visit the Microsoft website and fill out the required form, which will ask for the product key.Until the new version of the operating system is available, Microsoft is prepared to offer users a free disc containing an earlier , stable version of the XP Operating System.

We at Microsoft would like to take this opportunity to sincerely apologize for any inconvenience (and now having said so will go join the PC Guy for a good cry in the corner).

Microsoft is not the only company that could fall victim to this proposed increase in standards.Imagine the results of temporary outages for network apps such as Google Docs, and if the same rules applied to purchased applications, email servers, or Internet browsers, there would be a lot of companies facing a great deal more stress over compensation packages- availability of Open Office to all Google Doc users until the system was repairs, or an automatic forwarding of all emails to another email address for all users while email hosts repair their issues,not to mention the millions of dollars spent by companies in an effort to save face and maintain the company reputation.

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