It looks like you're trying to work; would you like to be watched?
Office 97 shipped the Office Assistant, an uninvited paperclip, on by default
One of only 20 things they have ever fully walked back.
The market's verdict: +15.1% on MSFT in the week after.
What actually happened
Office 97 arrived on January 16, 1997 with a new coworker: a cartoon paperclip named Clippit who observed your typing and interrupted with unsolicited advice, most famously guessing that you were writing a letter. There was no polite way to explain that the letter was fine and the company was not. Microsoft made the Assistant optional in Office XP, advertised that fact as a feature, and then removed it entirely in Office 2007. It took ten years and two product cycles to close the paperclip. Clippy now appears in nostalgic marketing, which is exactly what he would have wanted.
This one is officially acknowledged.
They did it more than once
The dream of a helpful watcher never died; it just got a camera. Twenty-seven years later.
The social interface school of design graduates its second class, two years later.
Links
↳ caused by Office 97
Timeline
- Jan 16, 1997 Announced Microsoft announced it.
- Jan 30, 2007 Walked back Office 2007 shipped with no Office Assistant at all.