If IBM made toasters ...

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 Microsoft made toasters ...

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 have to pay for it anyway. Toaster'95 would weigh 15,000 pounds (hence requiring a reinforced 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 wanted 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...

It would do everything Microsoft toaster does, but 5 years earlier.

If Fisher-Price made toasters ...

"Baby's First Toaster" would have a hand-crank that you turn to toast the bread that pops up like a Jack-in-the-box.

If The Rand Corporation made toasters ...

It would be a large, perfectly smooth and seamless black cube. Every morning there would be a piece of toast on top of it. Their service department would have an unlisted phone number, and the blueprints for the box would be highly classified government documents. The X-Files would have an episode about it.

If the NSA made toasters ...

Your toaster would have a secret trapdoor that only the NSA could access in case they needed to get at your toast for reasons of national security.

Does Digital (formerly DEC) still make toasters ...

They made good toasters in the '70s, didn't they?

If Hewlett-Packard made toasters ...

They would market the Reverse Polish Toaster, which takes in toast and gives you regular bread.

If Sony made toasters ...

Their "Personal Toasting Device", which would be barely larger than the single piece of bread it is meant to toast, can be conveniently attached to your belt.

If The Franklin Mint made toasters ...

Every month you would receive another lovely hand-crafted piece of your authentic Civil War pewter toaster.

If Cray made toasters ...

They would cost $16 million but would be faster than any other single-slice toaster in the world.

If Thinking Machines made toasters ...

You would be able to toast 64,000,000 pieces of bread at the same time.

If Timex made toasters ...

They would be cheap and small quartz-crystal wrist toasters that take a licking and keep on toasting.

If Radio Shack made toasters ...

The staff would sell you a toaster, but not know anything about it. Or you could by all the parts to build your own toaster.

If K-Tel made toasters ...

They would not be available in stores, and you would get a free set of Ginsu knives with each one.

If the University of Waterloo made toasters ...

They would immediately spin-off a company called WatToast.

If the PQ made toasters ...

They wouldn't want to be on the same counter-top as the rest of the appliances.

If Oracle made toasters ...

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 Xerox made toasters ...

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

If Unix made Toasters ...

You would be able to control every aspect of how you would like your toast made, and could keep a detailed log showing the progress of the toast job. It would be difficult to set up at first, but you could configure your toaster to be completely self cleaning. Hundreds of users could make toast at the same time. You could make symbolic links to a piece of toast, so many users could all enjoy the same piece of toast without even knowing it's actual location. Unix toasters would work horribly with anything less than 1000 pieces of toast.