Clippy was one of the assistants Microsoft Office introduced in 1997 to help users with basic tasks that some were finding annoying and offered helpful advice. In Office XP, it was disabled by default and after irritating people’s workflow with its interruptions to offer help, Microsoft removed Clippy with Office 2007 in a fun press release.
https://twitter.com/stevesi/status/1098878936254013440
Microsoft recently reintroduced it(though not by default) to its now 2-year-old workspace platform that comes with Microsoft Office 365, Teams. Clippy was shown in various situations such as holding a coffee cup in front of its face and “Happy Hour” as well.
Well, his appearance didn’t excite anyone. It was promptly shut down, again – Microsoft’s brand police didn’t like it and immediately ordered it to be vaporized. The Gitbub page Clippy had has now disappeared too.
Fans of Clippy now have an online petition in the hopes that it gets enough signatures and that Microsoft to bring it back.
Microsoft Teams is becoming a popular tool and is now used by more than 500,000 organizations worldwide with 91 out of the Fortune 100 already on board and serves as a Slack alternative that has 10 million daily active users and 85,000 paying customers.
Microsoft Teams is getting one of its most requested features – private channels later this year among other updates such as new call conferencing features, customized backgrounds, live captions, live events and this impressive whiteboard feature for remote workers:
#MicrosoftTeams Rooms will soon support an additional camera for content capture on analog whiteboards. Leverage Microsoft’s new Intelligent Capture processing so remote attendees can continue to brainstorm, even if someone is standing in the way. #EC19 https://t.co/9KgRnNgeq4 pic.twitter.com/von3cFZPBq
— Microsoft Teams (@MicrosoftTeams) March 19, 2019
A year ago, Microsoft had inserted the assistant as an easter egg for Cortana and it looks like he’s gone back.
