It was decided when MS purchased SubLogic. You can count the number of products which MS was the original creator with ten fingers, maybe plus toes.

And one of those products was Microsoft Bob.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2.5 ghz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (94.47), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2 GB Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8, WD 250 gig 7200 rpm SATA2, CoolerMaster Praetorian

I think MS was trying to use MS Bob to hedge against the 'accidental' failure of Windows 95.