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Bob the Builder
Microsoft Bob was a product released by Microsoft in March 1995 as an entirely different adventure game-like interface/shell for performing tasks on one's computer. more...
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Despite its ambitious nature, Bob failed to penetrate the market and is considered Microsoft's worst program, and their biggest failure. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer named Bob as one project "we undertaken ... where we decided that we have not succeeded and let's stop."
Origins
Microsoft Bob was designed to be a user friendly interface for Microsoft Windows version 3.1, replacing the Program Manager. The project was at one point managed by Melinda French, Bill Gates' girlfriend at the time. The two later married. At the time she left Microsoft she was Product Unit Manager for a group which included Bob and three other Microsoft titles. The project leader of Bob was Karen Fries (a Microsoft Researcher) who is married to Richard Tait, the co-founder of Cranium (the highly successful board game maker). Microsoft originally had the domain name bob.com for the product but traded it to Bob Kerstein for the windows2000.com domain.
Features
Bob included various office suite programs such as a calendar, a finance application, and a word processor. The user interface was designed to be helpful to novice computer users, but many saw its methods of assistance as too cute and involved. Each action, such as creating a new text document, featured the step-by-step tutorials no matter how many times the user had been through the process. Users were assisted by cartoon characters whose appearance was usually vaguely related to the task. These characteristics earned Bob the 7th place in PC World Magazine's list of the 25 worst products of all time and worst product of the decade by CNET.com.
Despite its poor market showing and reputation, Bob's yellow smiley face logo became widely associated with the product.
The cartoon helper agents of Bob (version 1.0)
Bob featured a diverse selection of "guides," representing an early form of the Office Assistant and Microsoft Agent technologies. Each guide possessed its own unique "personality" and had its own array of animations. The guides annoyed some critics of Microsoft Bob .
Rover, the yellow dog;
Blythe, a firefly from New York City;
Chaos, a fluffy cat from France;
Digger, an Irish earthworm;
Hopper, a blue stuffed bunny rabbit;
Java, a coffee-drinking dragon from Guatemala;
Ruby, a parrot;
Shelly, a turtle that wears a backpack and carries a walking stick;
Scuzz, a guitar-playing rat;
Speaker, a black computer speaker;
Will, a cartoon of William Shakespeare;
The Dot, a red ball;
Baudelaire, a gargoyle from a gothic cathedral;
Read more at Wikipedia.org
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