If "They" made toasters ...

If IBM made toasters ...
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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 Xerox made toasters ...
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You could toast one-sided or double-sided. Successive slices would get lighter and lighter. The toaster would jam your bread for you.

If Oracle made toasters ...
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They'd claim their toaster was compatible with all brands and styles of bread, but when you got it home you'd discover the Bagel Engine was still in development, the Croissant Extension was three years away, and that indeed the whole appliance was just blowing smoke.

If Hewlett-Packard made toasters ...
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They would market the Reverse Toaster, which takes in toast and gives you regular bread.

If Sony made toasters ...
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The ToastMan, which would be barely larger than the single piece of bread it is meant to toast, can be conveniently attached to your belt.

And, of course: If Microsoft made toasters ...
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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 still have to pay for it anyway. Toaster '95 would weigh 15000 pounds (hence requiring a einforced 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 nonetheless would buy them since most of the good bread only works with their toasters.

If Apple made toasters ...
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It would do everything the Microsoft toaster does, but 5 years earlier.

If Linux made toasters...
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Anyone could build his own toaster from the spare parts in the garage, but people would still pay money for pre-built toasters. All the parts would be user serviceable, and the design plans would be freely downloadable. Instead of the complexity of having to push a button, you would simply Type something like "toast-lightness=Úrk-bread-type=brown". The toaster would burn your toast by default, but once you enable the > ">don't-burn-my-toast" feature in "toaster.conf" (as described in the TOASTER-RTFM-HOWTO) it would toast reliably for years. People who eat Linux toast say that it is better than Windows toast.