"Clippy was crippled by MS when they implemented the working research project into the broken version used in Office. (http://robotzeitgeist.com/2009/08/lumiere-project-origins-an...) The original implementation was deemed "too cautious" by PHBs, and thus a stupid kludge was added to make clippy appear more often. (http://lesswrong.com/lw/7wt/funny_even_clippy_can_be_blamed_...) (Interestingly that URL mentions siri before it was released)."