Microsoft Bob (1995-1996)

Microsoft Bob

Microsoft Bob, launched on March 10, 1995, for approximately $99, was an ambitious but ill-fated "social interface" designed to replace the standard Windows desktop with a familiar home environment for novice users. Instead of navigating menus and folders, users interacted with a virtual living room where clicking a calendar on the wall opened the scheduler and a pen on a desk launched the word processor. The experience was guided by a cast of animated "personal assistants," most notably Rover the dog, who offered constant tips through speech bubbles. Despite its high-profile pedigree—marketed by Melinda French (later Gates) and based on Stanford research into human-computer interaction—the software was a commercial disaster, selling only about 58,000 copies before being discontinued in early 1996. Critics lambasted Bob as being both "too childish" for adults and too "hardware-hungry" for the time, as its requirement of 8 MB of RAM was a luxury that many home PCs of 1995 simply did not possess. Though it vanished from shelves quickly, its DNA lived on in the form of the Office Assistant (Clippy) and the search companion in Windows XP.

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