[Douglas G. Brown]

At the 1985 Microsoft shareholders meeting, Bill Gates unveiled the new Windows 1.0 operating system. “It’ll make us all rich!”

An old lady from Dubuque asked, “How will we make anything selling it for $100, if a computer lasts for 10 years?”

“Simple” replied Gates. “Planned obsolescence! We follow up with Windows 2.0, Windows 2.1/286, Windows 2.1/386, Windows 3.1, Windows 3.2, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows ME, Windows NT 3.1, Windows NT 3.5, Windows NT 3.51, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows CE, and so on into the next millennium. Actually, each edition is obsolete the day we release it; but we’ll wait until the market’s saturated before we roll out its replacement!”

“Don’t you think we’re pulling the wool over the customer’s eyes?”, asked the lady.

“Uh, I wouldn’t put it that way. We’re merely pulling Window shades over their eyes. In fact, ultimately we’ll have fifty shades of Windows for those suckers….”