Remember Clippy? Microsoft’s Clippy of course! Clippy was introduced in Office 97 and remained active up until Office XP in 2001. It was designed to offer hints for making use of Microsoft’s Office software.
It would pop up on your screen to give you hints, and you either loved or hated it. It had ‘Groucho eyebrows’ – as described by Microsoft – and enjoyed a short but eventful life. The Office Assistant was shut down to make way for new Office features including smart tags and task panes. The paperclip made its way back into the Microsoft last week – a short but totally worth it return.
Clippy was resurrected on last Tuesday by Microsoft. The resurrection saw Clippy becoming an animated pack of stickers for the company’s Teams chat software. The stickers were then launched on Microsoft’ official Office developer GiftHub page. It was free for import by any of the Microsoft Teams. However, sadly enough; Clippy disappeared only after a day.
A Microsoft spokesperson said, ‘Clippy has been trying to get his job back since 2001, and his brief appearance on GitHub was another attempt. While we appreciate the effort, we have no plans to bring Clippy to Teams.’ It has also been reported that the ‘brand police’ within the company was not happy that Clippy had found its way into the Microsoft Teams and ordered that the paperclip is removed. The GiftHub project that was linked with Clippy for Microsoft Teams has also been canceled.
But there is hope because Clippy fans have started a petition to restore the famous paperclip to the Microsoft Teams. If you wish to see Clippy making a comeback as a sticker messaging pack; you can also vote! We are hopeful that Microsoft will consider this petition and actually bring Clippy back! What do you think? Should Clippy be resurrected or are you among the anti-Office Assistant force? Do let us know!
