Dedicated to the 15th anniversary of the legendary failure

How to hint as accurately as possible that the program is vile and there is no sense to it? Very simple: compare it with Microsoft Bob. Tell us about the notorious Windows 3.1 application, designed to help computer novices, the official release of which took place exactly fifteen years ago on March 31, 1995, and you will not have to add anything. Everything from OS X to Twitter, and to Google Wave, and to (which is inevitable), Windows Vista learned this lesson.

Bob, who became a swear word, survived for a long time, a short period of Bob’s life as a product. It is unlikely that the vast majority of people who are now using it as a synonym for “total technical failure” have ever worked with this product. As small as the number of real Ford Edsel drivers among the pranksters about him.

But Bob did not start as a product to laugh at. It now seems obvious where Bob got such a reputation, but in 1995 even pundits, always having doubts, evaluated the idea as a precursor of the direction in which user interfaces should evolve. Even so, Bob passed away only a year later, Microsoft continued to bob many applications, and later - most noticeably in offices from 97 to 2003, all versions of which contained the notorious “Office assistant”, better known as Skrepka.

The birth of bob

Boba spawned a product that debuted in 1991 and is still alive: Microsoft Publisher. It was the first Microsoft application to simplify complex tasks with the help of wizards who guide users through them step by step.
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After completing the work on Publisher, its developers Karen Fraiz and Barry Lynnett thought to implement more. Their minds were still occupied with how to make programs more accessible to beginners. What was logical: in 1995, the average American family did not have a computer at home. (When Microsoft released Bob, projections were used that 46 percent of families would have a computer by 1997 — and that percentage seemed remarkably high.)

Freise and Linnett conducted focus groups, where they demonstrated the interface with animated duck as a screen assistant to neophytes. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Freise recalled the reaction of one of the participants: “This guy was very emotional - he grabbed my hand ... He said:“ Save money on all this documentation, and give me this duck, which will always be on the screen and tell you what should I do".

After they wrote a provocative internal document proving that Publisher is still very difficult to use, and requested funds to develop a new interface for inexperienced users, which will be on top of all Windows windows. Bill Gates was intrigued. He gave the green light to a project codenamed Data Wizard, later renamed Utopia, which was eventually released as Microsoft Bob.

Melinda French was appointed project manager. Working at Microsoft since 1987, she was engaged to Gates in 1993 and married him in 1994. These facts allowed many to conclude that Bob was initially a disastrous idea that would never have been launched if Melinda hadn’t been required to take. But Melinda became even a big supporter of Bob than his creators. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, she said about the work of Freise and Linnett: "They changed the course of things in creating applications - I wanted to be a part of it."

Although the Journal reported that there are doubters at Microsoft, everyone else inside also raised premature toasts for the health of Bob from outside the company. While working on Utopia, two Stanford professors, Clifford Nass and Byron Reeves, were invited as consultants. Their research proving that people attribute human qualities to machines has shown its importance.

Later, Reeves remarked in the Stanford newspaper:

The challenge for Microsoft was to make the computer easier to use and entertain. Cliff and I talked with them in December 1992 and said that they need to make it more social and natural. We told people that they like to establish social connections — to talk and react to signals like a personal message. Also, people interact well with the natural environment, for example, the movement of people and objects in the room, so if the interface communicates with the user using these innate human qualities, documentation will not be required at all.

As a result, Nass and Reeves joined the Microsoft team in a press tour to popularize Bob and the concept of "social interfaces" in general. “Demonstrating the beta version, these two scientists summed up their research, which claimed that people find social interfaces useful, convenient and effective,” recalls PCWorld Editor Steve Fox; “And both of our journalists tried not to giggle during this presentation.”

On July 8, 1994, Microsoft registered a patent for Bob’s idea and technology, describing in detail the appearance of this “real world” interface and internal aspects such as helper creation and animation tools. It was the first of many patents that the company will create in the field of animated assistants.

In the end, the workings for Bob — from the talking duck Fraise to the university studies of Nass and Reeves — turned into a package to increase personal productivity, in which cartoon characters taught users applications using background pictures at home. The characters were called “personal guides” and consisted of a dog named Rover (the default guide), a cat, a rabbit, a turtle, a sullen rat, a gargoyle and William Shakespeare himself, as well as many others. They all sat in the lower right corner of the screen, giving instructions in baluns and performing circus numbers while you were using the program. (They could also speak loudly, but not often - the sound card was the recommended option, but not the necessary equipment.)

The package included eight programs: word processor, mailer, calendar, address book, checkbook, personal finance program, home bookkeeping and geography test. Microsoft believed that both it and third-party manufacturers will release additional programs that can be installed in Bob’s environment.
Although the product has long been in the game, he still did not have a name. According to the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft put forward names such as Home Foundation, Essence of the House, Gallery, until its advertising agency, Wieden & Kennedy, suggested the name Bob in September 1994. Microsoft praised this name as “familiar, close and friendly” and bought it out a techie from Boston named Bob Antiy Bob.com, to be able to distribute to users of addresses in this domain. (Much later than Bob’s death, Microsoft made a deal with another guy named Bob to buy out the windows2000.com domain.)

Bob was personified as a blended face with glasses of Bill Gates, but although the program was named Bob, there was no such character in it. He appeared only as a decorative element - for example, in a medal on the collar of Rover.

In October 1994, a Microsoft designer, Vincent Connar, saw Bota’s beta and declared that the good old Times New Roman font in the tooltips was completely inconsistent with the playful style of the application. He began work on an aggressively simple font that became known as Comic Sans; The font was not included in Bob, but later began to ship with Windows. Comic Sans ended up like Microsoft characters. Bob: most didn't love him.

Coming of bob

On January 7, 1995, Bill Gates stepped onto the podium at the Consumer Electronics Show and introduced Bob to the world. He demonstrated the program and stated that this is a social interface, the first copy of a new approach that came to capture computers. He even demonstrated a futuristic prototype of Son of Bob from Microsoft Research: Pidi, a shrill 3D parrot performing the Tears of Fear repertoire on Gates voice commands.

Many Hollywood rulers were in the front row: Steven Spielberg, David Geffen, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and Barry Diller. Some observers have interpreted their presence as a sign that Bob is a new convergence of software and entertainment industries. “They saw a new type of creativity and how it beckons Hollywood music and animation companies,” Gates told the Associated Press.

Even if one of the former on the show could not attend the speech of Gates, the bobomania was inevitable. Flights to Vegas were packaged with Bob’s napkins, a plane with the “Welcome Bob” flag circled over the convention center, and honored citizens walked the streets with Bob’s billboards to the point of utter exhaustion.

And this is a report (yes, with Arabic subtitles and in English) about Bob:


In retrospect, all this extravaganza needed to add a huge dollop of tar: at subsequent shows in Vegas, Microsoft in the same style praised its other failures - Windows Smart Displays, Tablet PCs, Smart Watches. But then in 1995 the audience met Bob with respect. Even if they didn’t go crazy with Bob, they seriously took him as a pointer to the direction of software development.

The Soft-Letter industry herald thought Bob was dull, but important:

At first glance, all these jumps and grips seem to be just an abnormal interface design, but in fact the stand out characters of Bob have a goal: they reinforce what Microsoft calls its new "social interface" between man and the computer. In his speech, Gates revealed the intriguing principles of Bob’s design, principles that he believes would be “the next big step in the evolution of interfaces.” In short, Gates suggests that the next generation of high-performance PCs will abandon traditional GUIs in favor of “social” interactions with human-like agents able to understand, learn and interpret the user's wishes. At first, these agents will be able to provide extremely limited intelligence and problem solving abilities, but they will become wiser and begin to perform more complex tasks as soon as the PC has enough power to handle realistic simulations.

Many saw in Bob the next stage of development, like the one that Apple created a decade earlier.

A Canadian employee at Microsoft told the Toronto Star about a study showing that 84 percent of Poppy home users prefer the Bob interface. Several newspapers immediately reported, citing secret sources, that Apple was working to create a bob-like interface.

Analyst Charles Finney, Welty & Co, called the Microsoft product a threat to the very existence of its competitor from Cupertino. “Bob will be another nail in Apple’s coffin, unless of course Apple can somehow raise standards again in ease of use,” he told The Associated Press. Thanks to such a loud statement, Bob was not forgotten, as an unsuccessful joke that same year 1995.

Bob goes to the masses

Like many Microsoft products before and after, Bob was announced before it was completed. Officially, the program did not enter stores until March 31, 1995, almost three months after the premiere in Vegas. It sold for $ 99 - quite expensive, even by the standards of that era, when most programs were sold much more expensive than they could be sold in subsequent years.

But the price of Bob was not so important in comparison with hardware requirements. The program required a PC with a 486 processor, 30MB of free disk space and - according to the Puget Sound Business Journal “huge memory” - 8MB of RAM, which was twice as much as the average PC in 1995. Beginners would only be able to use Bob if they had unusually powerful computers.

In Bob's ads and even on his box, Microsoft continued to claim that it was such a simple product that no documentation was required. Well, maybe the program came with a 29-page booklet with instructions, which was called the first issue of the magazine "Bob", and not documentation.

Moreover, Microsoft Press, the company's publishing house, has released a 210-page volume called “Houses with Bob”, which seems a bit too big for a package, for which instructions are not supposed. ("Microsoft Bob for Dummies" - a nice name! - was planned, but it was canceled before publication.)

With the release date approaching, Microsoft has raised a second advertising wave. The company enlisted the support of star computer starter, film actor Murphy Brown, and called March 31, "Microsoft's Bob Day." Buyers were offered the construction of a "technological profile" to determine the most appropriate character. CompUSA has scheduled two days of bob demonstrations. Gateway 2000, NEC, Micron and other market leaders announced their intention to include Bob in their home PCs.

Bob's failure

Although all the preparations for the release of Bob were done correctly, Microsoft made one gross strategic mistake. She began distributing copies of Bob to journalists in December 1994, and at the same time banned any publications other than those based on materials from the Vegas show, before the official release on March 31. But Bob's reviews began to appear in January, which would be good if they were full of excitement. But the majority contained anything, but not delight. Technical journalists who used Bob for a while were much less impressive than those who saw only the demonstrations.

Stefan Manes, The New York Times:

Bob is a poor helper. It stores its data in formats that few programs can read. He stubbornly changes the position of the buttons "OK" and "Cancel", which in general is the standard. In addition, this Brownie Bob is stupidly inconsistent. Pressing Ctrl + L on the desktop allows you to adjust the volume; the same in your address book, will trigger mailing lists. Again and again, Bob tells you what to do, but he doesn’t allow it until you press OK.

William Casey, The Washington Post

At this stage, the Bob tuning tools are quite superficial. You cannot add your characters, rename those Microsoft supplies, create your own room layout or build a house. You can not even add your room, and should only use wired in the bob.

John Dickinson, Computer Shopper:

Unfortunately, the rooms, like the characters of Bob, seem to have come from kindergarten. They are drawn as if the target audience is children under 12, and most of their behavior will be unacceptable for people who are serious about getting the most out of their PC, respectively - for most adults.

Michael Pucel, The Boston Globe:

If this was done by someone else, and not the world's largest software maker with a huge impact on the market, you would never hear about this program or even try to test it. Bob will simply drown in a swamp where bad foods die a quiet death.

True, not all critics rated Bob as a fiasco. Larry Majid, Los Angeles Times, was less categorical:

Bob is not meant for initiates. It is designed for millions of people who will use the computer for the first time. Its interface should push people to learn, and its silly characters are just a comical design that will allow beginners to overcome their phobias. But as soon as people learn the basics, I think they will cool off to him, and it will only annoy.

And Volt Mossberg, the host, then and now in the column in The Wall Street Journal, was generally optimistic:

Tomorrow Bob will go on sale, and I recommend it to anyone who has become disenchanted with Windows, or those whom it seems to be too alien, no matter to beginners or experienced, but ordinary users. This is an unpopular point of view in computer publications and among computer experts. They all speak rather negatively of Bob, calling him too simple, banal and arrogant. In fact, arrogant assertion that all who do not like modern computer interfaces are mistaken. As with all updates, there are rough spots and problems in Bob. But he is a serious attempt to create something for non-technicians who want to get comfortable with the computer.

But on the whole, it was obvious that the advancement of Bob in technical circles was a way of running into it. Because it is very difficult to understand why Microsoft gave Bob's advertisement in the August issue of the geek's Wired Bible, months after the disastrous release. The tone of the message is similar to children's excuses:

Once and ready. It's really nice to work with a computer that doesn't give a damn about you. That's why Bob is in it. With Bob, you can customize your computer so that it works as you like. Bob uses the latest software development: a social interface. Which can be described as "a really good program that makes the computer pleasant and friendly to you." Bob will help you fill out your checkbook, write a letter, receive e-mail, keep calendar entries, save contacts, play GeoSafari, and learn how to work with programs for Windows. And all this with comfort. Bob has personal assistants, animated screen characters that will help you at every step. Bob is so easy to use that it doesn’t even come with a user manual. All you need is a computer with 8 megabytes. To get acquainted with Bob, contact the suppliers in your region. Bob is not a fantasy and he is very comfortable, isn’t he?

By that time, it was absolutely clear that Bob was in trouble. Before Bob went on sale, Microsoft predicted that he would become one of the bestsellers along with Microsoft Works and Encarta. But according to PC Data market research, only 58,000 copies of Bob were sold in all time. (For comparison, PC Data claims that Microsoft sold 2.75 million copies of Windows 95 in its first month of sales, which began in August 1995.)

In early 1996, Microsoft discontinued the release of the product. She released two additional products for Bob: Bob Plus Pack and Great Greeting for Microsoft Bob. But Bob 2.0, which was under development, never came out. Just as Bob for Mac did not come out - a version about which Microsoft began to reason even before the release of the version for Windows. It was a remarkable short life cycle of a product that attracted so much attention, especially considering the well-known Microsoft glory of releasing versions of new products until they become popular.

“The biggest mystery to me is how they managed to kill Bob so quickly when the head of the department that created him was Melinda French Gates”, surprised the technical writer and unwavering Bob admirer Roger Cadenhead. “I tried to interview her once, but Microsoft PR did not allow me. I have only one question: why did you let Bob die in 1996 - do you know anyone at Microsoft who had enough power to save the project? ”

I know.To me, the failure of Bob does not seem to be something difficult: the failure was inevitable. Even if we take into account the adults who are afraid of computers, wanting to be helped by anthropomorphic animals and inanimate objects, then those that were in Bob seemed boring and infantile. They were poorly drawn and animated, joked flat and made the same mechanical movements over and over again, which made loss of trust inevitable. Even the sound effects were annoying. Microsoft invited Hollywood to the premiere of Bob, but it was created by engineers and academic researchers, not experts from the entertainment world — which Bob clearly demonstrated.

Of course, there are other theories of product death. Some are voiced by senior people who worked on the product:

Bob devoured resources.This statement is personally Bill Gates. “Microsoft Bob is a product released a couple of years ago that used cartoon characters to help people work,” he wrote in 1997. “Unfortunately, the program needed more performance than an average computer could provide, and this is a rather narrow market.”

Poorly explained the appointment of Bob. "We talked a lot about the concept of this user interface, but we didn’t talk enough about what Bob does," the former product manager from Bob’s development team said in 1997. With this, he says that Bob’s package, including in itself a word processor, email, checkbook and other applications.

Bob was too rough a draft of a good idea.“The problem with radically new things is that the first implementations are usually terrible,” Cliff Nass of Stanford thought in 1999. “But all terrible products, if they are new, have some functions for which you can forgive everything. The industry is intolerant of developments that are generally bad, but have potential ... It only works with things that are better on average. ”

Experts killed Bob. "Technical stars told me that they would bury Bob," wrote Monica Harrington, who was in charge of promoting the product. “Not only did they not like him, they were even angry that it was developed. It was a personal dislike. ”

Bob did not reach the set level. Harrington: “Bob was expected to be a lifestyle-changing product, but he didn’t.”

None of these diagnoses gives us a complete picture, but in each of them there is some truth. You should also take into account that Bob came out just five months before Windows 95 - an operating system that was less clumsy than previous versions. “It’s important to talk about Bob in a temporary context,” said Dwight Silverman of the Houston Chronicle. “It was released before Windows 95 (although it can be used in it), in the era of Windows 3.1, which for the most part is an add-on over DOS. There were a lot of alternative environments then: Compaq's Tabworks (which was not bad) and the environment that came with Packard Bell and used the same “room” metaphor as Bob had. With the release of Windows 95, all these add-ons have lost their relevance, including Bob. ”

My uncle bob

Has Bob left offspring? Obviously, there are descendants in the later attempts by Microsoft to introduce bob-like functionality into the most popular programs. For example, a much larger number of people worked with Scrack and other helpers in Microsoft Office than with Bob. (As Roger Cadenhead demonstrated, the Office 97 assistant code is so close to Bob that it’s possible to drag his characters into the office.)

Almost seven years after Bob, Microsoft returned his main character as a search assistant in Windows XP. It was completely out of place, especially in Windows XP Professional. But if you consider that XP is still the most popular operating system in the world, Rover still has a job.

In the article “Behind the Scenes of Bob,” Microsoft veteran Tandy Trover writes about the lateral branch of the development of Bob’s Microsoft Agent. Agent is a platform for creating bean-like characters for programs or the web. This package also did not become popular. (One of the places where he used Bonzi's Bonzi BONZIBuddy program, for advertisements with a talking monkey, got a worse reputation than Bob’s.)

When Clip was young, several newspapers said that she and other characters were proof of Bob’s prematurity. But helpers were also ridiculed like Bob. And ultimately, all subsequent social interfaces died: the company eradicated the office assistants, nailed the search assistant in Vista and stopped supporting Microsoft Agent in Windows 7 (although unofficial support is still available).
Moreover, none of the technical companies had any success with anything even remotely resembling Bob, and didn’t even particularly try to develop an idea. Bill Gates accused Bob of excessive resource requirements, but in 2010 the weakest netbook was able to launch a three-dimensional voice-activated parrot, which he demonstrated in 1995, but nobody does them. If someone now revives the idea of ​​talking animal helpers, then each review will recall Bob in the first paragraph. And not the best words.

Moreover…

Some aspects of the Bob interface are alive and even useful. Archivist Bob Dan Rose, who is a fan of his - “the social interface gave a personal computer a personality and, I think, this is a very good idea” - conducted an exciting investigation showing that parts of Bob survived in Windows 7 in the form of pop-up balloons with hints. Countless sites that use step-by-step instructions do this with the help of menus that echo Bob and Publisher. And when Apple decided to make sure that the iPad was easy to use, it also accepted what Microsoft did in the nineties — they decided to run all applications in full screen.

I see parts of Bob in Siri, the new iPhone app, whose creators describe him as a “personal assistant.” You speak a request to your iPhone; Siri listens, converts to text, highlights the meaning and gives you information. Remarkably, it works well. But the creators of Siri, among whom, like Bob, are Stanford researchers, do not consider it necessary to complement it with talking animals trying to be cute. Like Bob, the program gives out baluns with information in the form of a conversation, but does not tie it to the character. Baluns themselves are anthropomorphic, and more Siri is not necessary.

This all makes me think that Bob went the wrong way. I understand that users in 2010 are much more developed than a decade and a half ago. But most likely newbies in 1995 would accept something more elegant than usi-pusi menagerie Bob. Something that would treat them as reasonable adults who were strangers to the computer.

If Microsoft had sent Bob in this direction — right away or with a series of updates — there would be a considerable chance that he would now be remembered as a starting point. Maybe there is some kind of alternative reality in which products are also often compared with Bob, just like us, but is this a compliment?

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Bob and Beyond: A
Microsoft's Bizarre Animated Character Patents

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