Pirateopedia | Main / MegaSmooth Software

Founding: Like most other early software providers, MegaSmooth sprung out of a garage in Silicon Valley in the early 1980's. Young Billy Gates III had dropped out of college and his angry father sent him out into the garage to think about his unwise decision. No-one knows exactly what Billy did in the garage that night, but when he came out he was all flustered and talked incoherently about "world domination" and the very next day he started MegaSmooth Software with the money he got from selling his dad's car.

After having spent two nights in a holding cell for stealing and selling on the car, his mom took pity on him and paid the bail, and he went on to develop and launch MegaSmooth's first software line: "Little helper".

"Little helper" was the first desktop advisor on the market. It made a little cartoon nerd (modeled on little Billy himself) pop up to give friendly advice whenever the user did anything out of the ordinary...well...it actually had an annoying habit of popping up ALL THE TIME!

That in turn led to MegaSmooth's next software line: "Little Helper: vacation expansion kit". A handy little program that gave the users the option to send Little Helper on vacation and leave them in peace. The bestselling product was the now legendary "Little Helper: extended vacation in Hell" expansion. After only three months on the market, it was estimated that a whopping 99.9 percent of all computer owners had bought it.

Legal Issues: After the release of the Little Helper vacation expansion kits, voices were raised claiming that MegaSmooth had intentionally made Little Helper as annoying and intrusive as possible to pave the way for the expansion kits. Numerous attempts were made to drag MegaSmooth to court, but after the notoriously nasty virus "Little Helper: life without parole" mysteriously ended up in numerous critics computers, and overrode all attempts to send Little Helper on vacation, the critique soon disappeared. It was also around this time that the company's motto was created: "MegaSmooth Software - Your friendly software provider"

Corporate Nation status: In 2100 Billy Gates III's great, great grandson, Willie Gates VII took full control of the company. The take-over was the result of an extensive employee study. With the help of his great, great grandfather Billy Gates III, little Willie managed to gather enough information about the company's board that he could give them an offer they couldn't refuse: "Give me full control, or else...!"

In 2108 little Willie fulfilled his great, great grandfather's and his own long-time dream of world domination, by suggesting a wonderful new form of democracy: voting by shopping ?, a system that gave the most successful company in each area power to legislate within that area. The new system of governing instantly sent MegaSmooth spiraling upwards to complete world domination, as all other companies by now were completely dependent on MegaSmooth's software.

Corporate Division: Nowadays, MegaSmooth mainly works in two areas: Security and surveillance. A few people have claimed that they have moved on from Little Helper to Big Brother, but no-one ever said it more than once. They all happened to fall victims of all sorts of freak accidents. One man accidently hit a bus when he fell from his bedroom window (located on the 27th floor), another accidently ran into a BBQ skewer, no less than seven times, and so on.

MegaSmooth's security section mainly work with making sure that people's computers only run securely with licensed MegaSmooth software and spontaneously combust if any other software is introduced.

The surveillance section work to help people keep track of their everyday life. They have for instance developed a neat little memory upgrade software called Egghead3000. Users simply plug it straight into their hippocampus. Egghead3000 not only boosts their memory with all sorts of functions. It also includes a very helpful backup-service that stores all your brain functions, memories etc on MegaSmooth's servers. The slogan: "Forgot your car keys? We'll help you find them!" awarded MegaSmooth's pr(opaganda) department a Gold Turkey Award for best slogan of 2108.

Corporate Culture: It's fun to work at MegaSmooth. All services are provided. Employees can eat, sleep and wash their clothes at MegaSmooth. Basically, there's no need to go home at night. In fact, MegaSmooth doesn't expect their employees to go home. In fact it has been reported that the company let the guard dogs chase them down if they try.

Misc: Within MegaSmooth the phrase: "We eat dog food" is widely used to describe the policy of feeding the employees whatever the many guard dogs manage to catch. However, the company's official canteene menu calls it: "MegaSmooth Surprise".