Unlike when Microsoft tried to kill off its Paint program earlier this year, there was no protest or outcry over the death of Clippy. He finally departed the digital domain in 2007 when Microsoft Office dismissed him all together. When then Microsoft CEO Bill Gates announced Clippy’s retirement in 2001, saying “XP stands for Ex-Paperclip,” he got a standing ovation. Less than six years after his debut in Windows Office 1997, Clippy went into an early retirement in 2002 when he was turned off by default, meaning most users at the time probably never saw him. But while they have the privilege of being powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning to help them help us, it’s not hard to view Clippy as an early version of such systems - a clunky pioneer of digital assistants from an age when IT was much much simpler.Īnd, as they say, the first one through the wall always gets bloody. Rather than bringing back Clippy as another digital assistant, the iconic character. These days so many of our products are imbued with digital helpers, such as Apple’s Siri or Alexa in Amazon’s smart home speaker. Microsoft’s iconic Clippy assistant for Office is making a big comeback on Windows 11, but in another form. After all, who wants a creepy paperclip eyeballing you when you’re trying to write a letter. In particular women didn’t like him because they thought that Clippy were leering at them. Microsoft Office assistant Clippy is making its big resurgence as part of a Visual Studio extension. In early focus group testing, the anthropomorphised paperclip wasn’t exactly a hit with the public.Ī Microsoft executive at the time, Roz Ho, once said in focus group testing the results came back “kind of negative.” Move over Cortana, theres a new (old) digital assistant in town: Clippys back. But like an annoying younger sibling who wouldn’t leave you alone when you were hanging out with your older friends, Clippy’s constant nagging and seemingly random suggestions quickly became annoying.īut that wouldn't have shocked Microsoft. A digital assistant, also known as a predictive chatbot, is an advanced computer program that simulates a conversation with the people who use it, typically over the internet. He would appear on screen unprompted with suggestions that were supposed to be helpful. Despite becoming an indelible feature of the early editions of Microsoft’s home office software, it wasn’t always smooth sailing for the little mascot that just wanted to help.Ĭlippy - who was originally named Clippit - was the onscreen assistant from Microsoft Office products in the late 1990s and early 2000s. WHETHER you loved him, or you hated him, you no doubt remember Clippy.įor those born before the late 90s, the little paperclip character with his big eyeballs and incessant need to help will forever be synonymous with Microsoft Word and the early days of personal computing.īut there’s a lot you probably don’t know about the life of Clippy (because why would you?).
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