Bob was also confusing to navigate; sucked up system resources, reducing computers to a crawl; and was widely derided in the general and tech press. Users stayed away in droves.

Microsoft Bob was overseen for a time by Melinda French, who was Bill Gates' girlfriend at the time and later became his wife.

If you want to see Bob in action yourself, . (Warning: The video contains extreme stupidity, horrendous interface design and a nonstop stream of intense monotony.)

Microsoft's earliest products were for individual users, rather than for IT departments, but the company knew that ultimately it would have to sell products aimed at enterprises if it wanted to thrive. On June 11, 1996, the company launched Microsoft Exchange Server, which was originally written to handle Microsoft's internal e-mail. (Previously the company used a Xenix-based e-mail system.)