Why Does Microsoft Discontinue Popular Business Software?

Over the past year, Microsoft has been fighting an uphill battle to regain consumer trust amongst both home and business consumers, and whilst there are many reasons for this unrest, the most clear and apparent is the discontinuation of a popular piece of widely used software.

The discontinuation of Microsoft Windows 10 in favour of a replacement that not every computer can run and many people refuse to use due to its controversial additions has become a flashpoint for the company, intensifying frustrations and concerns about privacy and data integrity.

Whilst the reasons are individual and vital, one major frustration commonly voiced by users of IT services is why useful apps and programs are discontinued at all, especially if there is no logical replacement.

Microsoft, being one of the world’s oldest software companies, has discontinued a lot of business tools over the years, typically replacing them with a new version, a new application or merging its functionality into a new tool.

For example, MSN Messenger was replaced by Skype For Business, which was ultimately replaced by Microsoft Teams. Meanwhile, Microsoft Chart’s functionality was merged into Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint.

However, there are tools, sometimes popular ones, that have never truly been replaced by Microsoft, forcing users to either stick with old, unsupported applications or hunt elsewhere.

Here are some of the most notable and why they were never replaced.

Why Was Microsoft Bob Discontinued?

Whilst some older Microsoft tools were merged or discontinued before 1996, Microsoft Bob was equal parts failed experiment and brief glimpse into a very different computing world.

Taking skeuomorphism to its logical conclusion, Bob intended to make using a computer as simple, intuitively understandable and fear-free as possible, geared towards an entire generation of people who were using a computer for the first time.

It took the form of a cartoon house with household objects corresponding to compatible applications, complete with digital pets and cartoon characters to act as assistants.

Unfortunately, it was not quite as simple nor as accessible as had been originally hoped. The system specifications called for an expensive computer, and the home environment did not quite match the ambition of being instantly recognisable.

Bob was discontinued after less than a year, failing to even compete with the standalone Packard Bell Navigator. However, its assistant system became the basis for the Office Assistant (aka Clippy), which would eventually inspire the likes of Cortana and CoPilot.

Why Was Microsoft FrontPage Discontinued?

Whilst Microsoft Office has seen countless tools be adopted and subsequently discontinued, probably the most popular Office application that has been discontinued was the simple but effective web editor FrontPage.

A WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) web design tool, FrontPage allowed anyone to design their own website without knowing HTML or having the ability to code, and became a vital lifeline for individuals, enthusiasts and small businesses alike.

It was replaced by Expression Web and SharePoint, both of which have also been discontinued and all of which were the victims of a changing internet.

The small business that relied on FrontPage instead set up a WordPress website or used a similar, simple online platform to develop their websites instead. Whilst Microsoft maintained a foothold in intranet services thanks to SharePoint, Microsoft largely abandoned the web design market.

Why Was Microsoft Encarta Discontinued?

A popular fixture amongst education and business environments in the 1990s and early 2000s, Microsoft Encarta was an interactive encyclopaedia with a mix of text entries, sounds, pictures, videos and even some games.

In this format, often on multiple CD-ROMs, it was extremely successful, but it would ultimately engineer its own demise through an attempt at innovation.

Encarta became a website in 2000, but thanks to the rise of Wikipedia, a user-generated encyclopaedia that, contrary to its reputation, was generally fastidiously edited, sourced and checked, it had quickly become obsolete.

What Was Microsoft Vizact And Why Was It Discontinued?

During the early era of the Internet, web designers were still unsure how to incorporate interactive and dynamic features into web pages. Microsoft Vizact was meant to bridge the gap, but ultimately failed to gain the ground it needed.

It used a web design standard called HTML+TIME (Timed Interactive Multimedia Extensions), to allow for elements to appear and disappear, move and react to a mouse.

It was ultimately only compatible with Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5, around the time that free web browsers were starting to become available, and by the time it arrived on the market in 2000, what little niche existed had been snapped up by Macromedia.

The kind of functionality Vizact offered was provided by Dreamweaver and, to a lesser extent, Flash, although the animations would later be incorporated into PowerPoint 2002.