Microsoft turns half a century. The Redmond company has exceeded crisis, reinventions and complicated moments, but has managed to stay in the race. It could have been left as a distant memory of its golden years, something similar to what comes to mind when we think of brands such as Kodak or Blackberry. But it was not so. Microsoft has not only survivedbut is in one of his best moments. It is not only one of the most valuable companies on the planet (at the time of writing these lines occupies second place in stock market capitalization), but also leads areas as strategic as cloud computing, artificial intelligence or the world of video games.
We already commented a few days ago: one of the keys to its success has been its ability to adapt. The previous list has a remarkable absence: Windows. And it is not an oversight. Although it is still an important piece within the Microsoft ecosystem, it has long stopped occupying the leading role in the business. Today it is installed in more than 70 % of the world’s computers and it is difficult to find someone who does not know what it is. But a few decades ago, personal computer science was a thing of a few.
The solution to humanize Windows
In the mid -nineties, the presence of computers in homes remained limited. Many users signed up for courses to learn to handle an operating system, and sit for the first time in front of a PC could be a disconcerting experience. Microsoft understood that, if I wanted to expand its user base, Windows should do more accessible. And his way of trying was a curious software called “Microsoft Bob”.
The program, which was internally developed under the name “Utopia”, reached stores on March 31, 1995, a few months before the launch of Windows 95. It was compatible with Windows 3.1 and later versions, and its approach was clear: convert the interface of the PC into a kind of virtual house, with rooms, furniture and animated characters that served as guides. When starting the program, the user was with a door. After touching and introducing the credentials, he accessed a domestic environment where he could choose between different rooms, such as a study, a living room or an office.
Each room offered accesses to system tools: a calendar, a address book, a clock or educational applications. Everything was presented with a cartoon aesthetics That, although it was looking to be nice, it was perceived as excessively childish. Each space also had a digital character that guided the user. The most remembered was Rover, an animated dog who worked as an assistant, although a turtle, an elephant and other characters also appeared.
Microsoft’s goal was that the experience was more enjoyable than with traditional Windows. But Bob did not finish curdling. Not only for its design, which aroused all kinds of criticism, but also for its technical demands: it required a computer with at least 8 MB of RAM, a considerable figure for many homes in 1995. The result was the foreseeable: few adopted it and the program was withdrawn from the market less than a year after its launch. By then, Windows 95 was now available and offered a much more intuitive experience, without decorating it with digital pets.
When Bob returned without warning
But its story has an unexpected turn. When Microsoft prepared the Windows XP installation CD, the team realized that there were about 30 MB of free space. What to do with them? In order not to miss them and, incidentally, hinder illegal discharges a bit, they decided to fill them with fictional data.
Instead of generating random files, a developer search in the company’s historical archives, recovered the images of the original Bob disks, combined them, I encrypted them with a random written key … and used them as digital filling. The result was as ironic as unexpected: Microsoft Bob ended up hidden within millions of legal copies of Windows XP, without anyone knowing.
Even so, Microsoft Bob left a certain legacy. Rover returned years later as a search assistant at Windows XP. And although Clippy, the famous Office clip, was not born within this program, the idea of accompanying the user with animated characters who offered help on the screen was already there.
For many it was a disaster. For a few, a discovery. Microsoft Bob did not succeed, but for some it was his first contact with computer science lived as a game. Some remember hours designing rooms. Others, parts of his virtual house with a view to the city.
Not all Microsoft attempts have gone well. And Bob is part of that list of experiments that did not work, along with products such as Zune, Windows Vista or Windows Phone. But it also demonstrates the company’s ability to prove, make mistakes and move on.
Imágene | Microsoft | Wikimedia Commons | Sweetcoffeemug (Reddit)
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