Microsoft has received a firm “go-ahead” from Twitter users to being back “Clippy”, the retired assistant in the MS Office platform. The Windows OS maker asked for just 20K ‘Likes’ and has received more than 130K votes of approval.
Clippy, the former Microsoft Office assistant, could officially come back to life in Microsoft Office’s cloud edition, Microsoft 365. The official Microsoft Twitter account teased that the company would replace the paperclip emoji with Clippy across Microsoft 365 if its tweet crossed 20K likes. Needless to add, the milestone was crossed within an hour.
If this gets 20k likes, we’ll replace the paperclip emoji in Microsoft 365 with Clippy. pic.twitter.com/6T8ziboguC
— Microsoft (@Microsoft) July 14, 2021
Clippy, the googly-eyed “assistant” in MS Office to make a comeback in Microsoft 365:
Microsoft’s “Office Assistant,” called Clippy, was a talking paperclip with googly eyes. Needless to mention, it was never one of the loved virtual characters.
In fact, Microsoft itself celebrated Clippy’s demise in the form of a series of Office XP ads in 2003. However, MS Office XP was the last version of the productivity suite that actively deployed Clippy in 2001.
Microsoft completely obliterated any and all Clippy instances from Microsoft Office way back in 2007. But it seems the company is trying to resurrect it, albeit for the cloud-based version of MS Office.
Microsoft recently released some animated stickers for Microsoft Teams, and for reasons unknown, included a portrait of Clippy. Taking things further, the company could bring back the “helpful” assistant to life.
I did wonder why Microsoft has been posting a bunch of Clippy images recently. Now it all makes sense, it's gonna come back as a Microsoft Office emoji https://t.co/6dzhutlTSn pic.twitter.com/eRz0YAaTms
— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) July 14, 2021
Microsoft is being coy after speeding past 20K Likes for Clippy’s return:
As mentioned above, Microsoft asked for 20 thousand Likes if users wanted Clippy back. Twitter users showered their love, and the 20K milestone was achieved within an hour.
With the milestone firmly in the rear-view mirror, Microsoft is now being mysterious. When a Twitter user directly asked Microsoft, the company remained non-committal.
Wait and find out.
— Microsoft (@Microsoft) July 14, 2021
Many Internet, Windows OS, and MS Office users hated Clippy simply because it wasn’t as helpful as portrayed. It had a nasty habit of dropping announced. Moreover, it was on by default, and the setting to keep the “assistant” off wasn’t easily available.
With Tweet for Clippy amassing more than 130K Likes, Microsoft may be compelled to bring it back from the digital graveyard of long-abandoned products and services.
The Clip is back. https://t.co/utLwBU5WSJ
— PC Gamer (@pcgamer) July 14, 2021
If Microsoft does bring back Clippy, it will not be in Windows 11 of the fully offline editions of MS office 2021. If the assistant does make a comeback, it could be inside Microsoft 365, formerly known as Office 365, a cloud-based subscription service.
Microsoft 365 offers access to productivity applications such as Word, Excel, and Outlook. It also offers more business and enterprise-oriented programs and features like Teams, Exchange, and SharePoint.