Microsoft Bob

Microsoft Bob

Developer(s)	Microsoft
Operating system	Windows 3.1 and 95
Development status	Discontinued
Type	GUI
License	Proprietary
Website	www.microsoft.com

Microsoft Bob was a Microsoft software product, released in March 1995, which provided a new, nontechnical interface to desktop computing operations. Despite its ambitious nature, Bob was one of Microsoft's more visible product failures. Microsoft's Steve Ballmer mentioned Bob as an example of a situation "... where we decided that we have not succeeded and let's stop".^[1]

Origins

Microsoft Bob was designed for Windows 3.1x and Windows 95 and intended to be a user-friendly interface for Microsoft Windows, supplanting the Program Manager. At one point, the project was managed by Melinda French, who at the time was Bill Gates' girlfriend (the two later married).^[2] At the time French left Microsoft, she was Product Unit Manager for a group which included Bob and three other Microsoft titles. The project leader for Bob was Karen Fries, a Microsoft researcher. Microsoft originally owned the domain name bob.com, but traded it to Bob Kerstein for the windows2000.com domain name.^[3]

Features

Bob included various office suite programs such as a finance application and a word processor. The user interface was designed to simplify the navigational experience for novice computer users.

The main interface is portrayed as the inside of a house, with different rooms to correspond to common real-world room styles such as kitchen and family room. Each room can contain decorations and furniture, as well as icons that represent applications. Bob offers the user the option of fully customizing the entire house. The user has full control over decorating each room, and can add, remove, or reposition all objects. The user can also add or remove rooms from the house and change the destinations of each door. Bob offers multiple themes for room designs and decorations, such as contemporary and postmodern.

The applications built into Bob are represented by matching decorations - for example, clicking on a clock opens the calendar, while a pen and paper represent the letter writer. The user can also add shortcuts to applications on his or her computer. These shortcuts display the icon inside various styles of decorations such as boxes and picture frames.

Bob features Assistants - cartoon characters which can help the user navigate the virtual house or perform tasks in the main interface or within the built-in applications.

Negative awards

Bob received the 7th place in PC World Magazine's list of the 25 worst products of all time^[4] and number ten worst product of the decade by CNET.com.^[5]

Legacy

Despite being discontinued before Windows 98 was released, Microsoft Bob continued to be widely panned in reviews and popular media.^[6]

Additionally, some designs of the Bob cartoons are still used in other Microsoft products:

• Bob's face is used in Windows Live Messenger as a "Nerd Smiley"
• Will and The Dot were Office Assistants in Office 2003 (Will was only in Office 97).
• The yellow dog "Rover" can be found in the search function of Windows XP
• Rover's animations (like typing on a computer) inspired the Office Assistant "Rex"
• Rocky, an animated dog, appears in the Microsoft program Greetings Workshop. The filename for Rocky is Rover, as in Microsoft Bob's Rover.

See also

• At Ease
• IBM RealThings
• Microsoft Home
• Packard Bell Navigator
• DOS Shell

References

External links

• Microsoft Bob Review
• Information about Microsoft Bob version 1.0 for Windows
• The GUI Gallery: Microsoft Bob' Examining Bob in the context of other graphical user interfaces
• A short computing history (story and slideshow) of Bobs from Microsoft Bob to Bob Metcalfe to Alice & Bob.