Software giant Microsoft is laying off one of its most
controversial employees: Clippy.
The software help system, a long-despised feature of Microsoft's popular
Office suite of business software, is the star of a new Web marketing
campaign launched Wednesday. The campaign and a companion Web site trumpet Microsoft's
forthcoming Office XP software as so easy to use that Clippy is out of a
job.
The Web site, designed and hosted by Microsoft, serves as a mock layoff
notice and resume for Clippy. "I've taken over this space to share my
pathetic story and show off my skills as a Web designer. Not bad, huh? Know
anyone who's hiring? Office XP works so easily that it's made Office
Assistants like me useless. Obsolete. And, I'm told, hideously
unattractive," Microsoft has Clippy saying on the Web site.
The company is bringing Clippy to a light-hearted end. Microsoft
is asking customers to take part in an online poll so they can
chime in on what Clippy's next job should be.
The site is part of a $30 million marketing and advertising campaign launched
to promote Office XP, which Microsoft is expected to launch this summer. For
Microsoft, Office is an extremely important product: Its sales make up more
than one-third of the company's overall revenue.
Microsoft is hoping to appeal to customers with a less-obtrusive, easier to
use version of the suite. In Office XP, Microsoft plans to hide the Clippy character
tool from view and help people in a less obtrusive manner.
Office customers are wondering why the Redmond, Wash.-based company took so long
to give Clippy the boot.
"Not one person in my office, from the receptionist to the sales people to
the engineers to the CEO use the blasted paper clip. Not even my wife, who
is an elementary school teacher, uses it," Ketan Deshpande, senior
software engineer at Manage.com, wrote in an e-mail to News.com. "In less time
than it took MS to put this Web site together, they could have pulled the
dumb clip out of their software."
Other Office customers agreed and wondered if Clippy was related to another,
much-reviled Microsoft helper. "These guys seem to be a legacy from
Microsoft Bob. When they were introduced I thought Microsoft was trying to
save face from Bob's dismal acceptance by moving a key piece of technology
into the professional products," wrote Steve Mizera, a systems engineer in
Silverado, Calif.
"Every time I have to install or reinstall Office the first thing I do on
each application is turn off Clippy. I have tried several of the variations
of the 'animated helper,' but I have found them all too annoying to leave
on," Mizera wrote.
Lisa Gurry, a Microsoft Office product manager, said Clippy has lived a
useful life but is no longer needed. "We think Office has so many new
features for making it easier to use that Clippy is no longer useful. This
is definitely in response to user feedback. We asked ourselves what we could
do to help users find features" with the least amount of confusion.
Gurry said if people miss Clippy, they can turn him back on by clicking
the "help" tag on the Office XP task bar.
Office XP not only plays a critical part in the company's product lineup
this year, but is seen as a catalyst for Microsoft's .Net software plan.
But the company will have a battle convincing many customers to
upgrade, analysts say. Many consumers and a growing number of business customers
don't see the need to upgrade to yet another version of Office, since they
use few of the productivity suite's existing features.
The Clippy Web campaign will continue until the Office XP product launch at
the end of May, Gurry said.
CNET News.com's Joe Wilcox contributed to this story.
Industry pioneer Energy Conversion Devices, which makes flexible solar collectors, files for bankruptcy protection and intends to sell of its solar businesses.
While some are blaming technology for an increase in one night stands, perhaps it's simply the brevity with which people communicate by phone that suggests swift progress to sexual congress.
When the sun goes down, that's when the iPad gets busy for folks with news readers. The iPhone? It's more of a daytime habit. If you're building an app for both devices, heed the lesson.
It's Valentine's Day, and love is in the air and on the baseball diamond. A new fantasy baseball app, Baseball Boyfriend, plays up the hunky side of the game.
EnerG2 opens a plant to make an engineered carbon that will improve performance of energy storage devices and make storage for start-stop hybrid cars less expensive.
