In 1995 Microsoft was looking for ways to make greater in-roads into the home computer market with Microsoft Windows. One effort proved to be a magnificant failure, that effort was known as Microsoft Bob. The idea was to create a new operating system interface that would resemble a normal home and bundle it with a word processor, calendar, and others. It would sit on top of Windows 3.1 or 95and include an assistant in the form of an animal to help the user with day to day tasks. The product was reguraly updated and bundled with some computers.
The effort proved to be one of the great failures of Microsoft, becoming a hated program by many. When PC Magazine listed the worst 25 products of all time, Bob won 7th place. Time Magazine even gate it a spot on their list of the 50 wost inventions, and CNET.com listed it as the number ten worst product of the decade.
While Bob was a failure, it's legacy lives on in...
- Bob's face on Windows Live Messenger as "Nerd Smiley"
- Rover the yellow dog assistant is in the search function of Windows XP
- The font Comic Sans MS was created for BOB and is now one of the the ten core fonts for the web.
You can read a detailed review of Bob here, http://www.bentuser.com/article.aspx?ID=327
-Professor Walter
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