This is cross-posted from a longer version on Techsophist. While most of the buzz this week about Office 2007 for Vista has been about the lack of back-compatibility between the newest Word and all previous versions and how it may be time to just say no, something even more major slipped right by. Clippy is dead (link found via Slashdot).

Yes, Clippy and his annoying friends, the vaguely Shakespeare guy, the huffy cat, the ecologically-superior whirling globe, and some others like the dog that are too aggravating to even mention, are dead, dead and gone. Clippy was the most annoying of all the creatures simply because even in the internal monologues (oh, that poet imagination...) he couldn't get the idea that not every communication was a letter or a memo, and his perkiness glowed in animated splendor. No one wants a perky paper clip when looking for answers.

So, Clippy is dead. Was it murder? Had he finally died of uselessness? I think the latter. If the underlying rhetoric of Word is enterprise and productivity, that leaves no place for an unproductive animated figure. In Microsoft world, even the animated figures are brisk, helpful (in an off-kilter Westworld kind of way), and productive. So long, Clippy. The real world is too serious for you, and oh yes. You're too annoying to live.