Microsoft Clippy resurrected?

Good day all, this is the Angry Systems Administrator. I just saw a news item regarding Microsoft testing a “Work Assistant” app for it’s mobile phone versions of Office.

This sounds terrifyingly like the return of the Microsoft Office “assistants” led by that damn paperclip, “Clippy.” We wrote a eulogy for Clippy back in 2007 when Microsoft wisely euthanized that little twerp and all his evil friends. Now, it looks like he may be back. Here are the gory details from CNET:

Microsoft is internally testing a new application called Work Assistant, which might be one of the projects with which company founder Bill Gates is involved closely. The Work Assistant app, marked as a private internal beta, is designed to help users perform various Office-related tasks on devices running the Windows Phone operating system for smartphones.

Oh…GOD NOOOOOO!!

Last week, during a Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) session, Gates said he was helping Microsoft work on a new Personal Agent project. While not offering many details, Gates said:

“One project I am working on with Microsoft is the Personal Agent, which will remember everything and help you go back and find things and help you pick what things to pay attention to. The idea that you have to find applications and pick them and they each are trying to tell you what is new is just not the efficient model — the agent will help solve this. It will work across all your devices.”

You really want the Windows phones to fail utterly, don’t you?

The Work Assistant beta is 2MB in size, and was last updated December 2, 2014, according to the Windows Phone Store page about the app. It works on devices that run Windows Phone version 8.1 and requires information on users’ appointments, contacts, Internet connection and microphone.

Which it will then forward to the appropriate government agencies.

It’s not clear what the Work Assistant’s connection is to Microsoft’s other “assistant”: Cortana. During Microsoft’s Windows 10 event in Redmond, Wash., in late January, officials showed off the ability for Cortana to do things such as fetch a PowerPoint deck from a user’s own OneDrive storage system, simply by having a user ask (by voice) for slides for a particular meeting.

Using a voice activation system is fine. I use Robin on my Android phone. There is no way in Hell I will ever allow the “Son, of (a bitch), Clippy” on anything in the Anger Central offices.

If Microsoft is trying to drive a stake through the heart of it’s mobile phone and other devices, I can’t think of a faster way than this. Granted, there are a lot of people who don’t remember what an unhelpful and horrific waste of resources Clippy and his evil friends were. This is just another reason to steer clear of Microsloth mobile devices.

Thank you

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~The Angry Systems Administrator~