Microsoft kills Encarta after Wikipedia seriously injures it
Microsoft Encarta filled the void for encyclopedic content between the print editions losing favor and Web sites such as Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Google Knol becoming essential tools. But it’s time has now come to an end, and after being seriously injured by those sites previously listed, Microsoft is killing Encarta dead.
Print media was never really the most suitable choice for encyclopedias. Firstly, once printed, they are set for life, with no alterations being made or errors corrected. Not a problem if you have enough money to buy a new set of A-Z encyclopedias every time a new edition is printed, but slightly more of an issue for the 99.9 percent of the population of the world who doesn’t.
In 1993, Microsoft published its first edition of Encarta, based on the Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia. This newfangled multimedia encyclopedia was a huge hit, incorporating images, sound clips, and video into the source material. By giving it away free with Windows-based PCs, Microsoft had great success with Encarta.
Since then, there have been many updated versions of Encarta released, with the latest containing over 62,000 articles. As well as the CD and DVD versions, Encarta is also available on the Web. But not for much longer. In the face of mighty opposition from the free alternatives, notably Wikipedia, Microsoft is discontinuing the full range of Encarta products.
It noted:
Encarta has been a popular product around the world for many years. However, the category of traditional encyclopedias and reference material has changed. People today seek and consume information in considerably different ways than in years past. As part of Microsoft’s goal to deliver the most effective and engaging resources for today’s consumer, it has made the decision to exit the Encarta business.
The Encarta FAQ pages were where the announcement of this product discontinuation occurred. Ars Technica first noted it and then the news quickly made its way onto Wikipedia, thus proving Microsoft’s decision to cull Encarta may be a sensible one.
The software version will be discontinued in June, 2009, with the Web sites disappearing on October 31. For some reason, the Japanese version will be last to go on December 31st, 2009.
This is, in some ways, a sad indictment of the way everything is gravitating online and in the form of user-generated content. Whether that’s such a good thing remains to be seen. But how can either print-based or physical media-based encyclopedias succeed when instantly updateable, free, and accessible-to-everyone Web editions such as Wikipedia are available?
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