Microsoft Bob charged $99 to replace your desktop with a cartoon living room
Microsoft Bob shipped a cartoon-house interface that sold about 58,000 copies
The market's verdict: +3.3% on MSFT in the week after.
What actually happened
Microsoft Bob, released March 10, 1995, replaced the Windows desktop with a cartoon house, a cast of relentlessly cheery guides and a dog named Rover, on the theory that new users would find rooms friendlier than menus. It cost $99, wanted 8 MB of RAM when many home PCs shipped with 4, and talked down to exactly the beginners it was built for. Around 58,000 copies sold in 1995, and Bob was discontinued the following year. The team did include Melinda French, later Melinda Gates, which makes Bob the most consequential flop in Microsoft history, just not for computers.
This one is well documented.
They did it more than once
The social interface school of design graduates its second class, two years later.
Links
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Context
- Wikipedia (wikipedia)
↳ caused by Microsoft Bob 1.0
Timeline
- Mar 10, 1995 Stood by it Microsoft stood by it.