Microsoft is preparing to shut down Encarta, the digital encyclopedia it first launched in 1993 as a direct competitor to old reference standbys like Encyclopedia Britannica. The encyclopedia, which for years was based on optical media and eventually made its way to the web too, grew quickly in the mid to late 90’s as a reference guide that was more convenient than book-based encyclopedias and was available for a tiny fraction of the price. According to its FAQ, Encarta’s web sites will be discontinued on October 31, 2009 (Except for Japan, which has until December 31, 2009). Microsoft will also stop selling the Encarta products by June.
From the FAQ:
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.
Microsoft’s vision is that everyone around the world needs to have access to quality education, and we believe that we can use what we’ve learned and assets we’ve accrued with offerings like Encarta to develop future technology solutions. In doing so, we feel strongly that we are making the right investments that will help make our vision a reality.
In the 2000’s Encarta’s popularity died out, largely due to the incredible growth of Wikipedia, the free web-based encyclopedia. Wikipedia is updated by a community of users from around the world, and is far more efficient than tradional encyclopedias and their online counterparts, which are edited in-house. In 2005 Encarta tried to take the middle ground by allowing users to submit suggestions for article updates, but these were not integrated into articles until they had been approved by Encarta editors.
For a full history of Encarta, be sure to check out its comprehensive Wikipedia entry, which has already been updated to reflect Encarta’s shutdown. Encarta’s entry on itself doesn’t mention anything about its demise, and actually seems to have less information than the Wikipedia article.
Via Ars Technica
About time!
My thoughts exactly Timothy! I actually used Encarta back in 2002 or so and it sucked ever so deeply. I just couldn’t find enough up to date and diverse info on the subjects I needed to study up on. Wikipedia has been FAR SUPERIOR.
Cant they sell it?? Encarta has brand name and content. It may not bring money for MSFT, but will leave the market competitive.
Hosting is cheap, and updating is not crucial. Pls sell, MSFT.
Make MS an offer!
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so what going to happen to all the data? couldn’t it be used to fill holes in wikipedia?
It would be great if they contributed all the content to creative commons …
same question. what about the data?
Ditto
Shift+Del for the data.
Why is this “about time” Timothy? You could trust Encarta’s results much more than Wikipedia, which is a great convenience but not always reliable. Shutting it down also means people will lose their jobs. I’m not sure what kind of person celebrates the death of a reliable product or the loss of many jobs. Words that rhyme with “lick duck” come to mind.
I’m not sure “about time” constitutes a “celebration.”
Yes, it’s sad when people lose their jobs, but the world doesn’t stand still–nor should it.
Wow, I never thought they would. Encarta is still very widely used for home users (families) and schools.
I assume this is all part of the ‘fat trimming’, too bad! I actually kinda liked Encarta and so did my daughter.
sounds like microsoft is working on something else?
If Microsoft is going to shutter Encarta and not sell it to someone, it would be a great internet generosity if they donated their data to Wikipedia.
EXACTLY! It would a simple way to show the world that they have a clue about the FOSS world. Since Encarta is going out of date with each passing second, its value is expiring to nothing anyway.
wendy, you are wrong. there have been academic papers disproving the argument that you can trust traditional reference materials more than wikipedia. in fact, wikipedia has been shown to be far superior and much more current than many of its non-crowd-sourced counterparts.
regarding the loss of jobs, its sad but blame it on poor leadership and bad vision. we should celebrate inefficient, poorly operated companies falling and paving the way for fresher smarter people to innovate. would you have us bail out encyclopedia encarta for god’s sake?
While Wikipedia may be more current, declaring it “superior” is subjective. The only area that I can say Wikipedia sucks big time in is structure. The authors of these articles can’t write a quality article to save their lives. Its quite pathetic.
Wikipedia is a community effort of which you are a part.
You are more than welcome to improve it.
The points made: You seem to have missed them.
i have fond memories of getting my hands on Encarta 97 – at last an alternative to expensive leather-bound encyclopeadias and inconvenient trips to the library, it was a taste of things to come. RIP Encarta!
The text is the old Funk & Wagnalls text, with updates – probably not of use to Wikipedia.
The pictures are mostly licensed, but we’ve already been in touch to ask about releasing what they can under a free content license.
lol I remember buying the latest version of Encarta on CD every year or so
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO:(
Encart was THE MOST amazing thing when we unpacked our first Windows machine, back in ‘98.
I was hooked on encarta for months, always feeling a tad smarter than my 5th grade classmates having to dig through physical encyclopedias(fo’ real!)
Sad to see it come to an end:(
Haven’t you been happy using the internets and wikipedia?
They should really do something with the data (which includes audio, video, photos, etc) instead of just shutting it down. As people suggested, just make it free and donate it to Wikipedia. That would earn them some good karma and PR points!
This makes no sense. Why not just keep the site online for archival purposes? Just add a header indicating that the entries are from Encarta 2008 and that the encyclopedia has been discontinued.
i liked encarta a lot, just remembering the old times with my windows 95. but nowadays wikipediais to big.
If MS donates Encarta database to Wikipedia, it will definitely improve their image.
While I am a strong proponent of Wikipedia, I hope that the shuttering of Encarta will not negatively impact educators in the public sector that rely on the software specifically because internal firewalls block the use of social media such as wikipedia.
Anyone remember the games Encarta used to come with in the late 90’s? I vaguely remember playing some kind of maze game…
@Calvin — Wikipedia would require you to site references to claims about wikipedia being more reliable than edited works
Regarding MSFT donating all the encarta material to Wikipedia — it’s likely Microsoft licenses some or all of that material from others, and that it’s not theirs to give away.
This is a shame and a MAJOR loss. Encarta was one of very few high-quality, free online encyclopedias. Microsoft bought Collier’s Encyclopedia, Funk and Wagnalls, and some other assets over the years. They’ve updated entries and managed the creation of original content.
might be time to celebrate the major gain of wikipedia, given that you seek information/knowledge, not a boring word in bold+italics at the right/left top corner of every page and with no news section or mention of the source of information.
It’s fascinating to see the cycle of ever-increasing value generation through continued shrinking of the market:
“More than half a billion dollars disappeared from the market. [...] For every dollar of revenue Microsoft made, it took away six dollars of revenue from their competitors. Every dollar of Microsoft’s gain caused an asymmetrical amount of pain in the marketplace. They made money by shrinking the market.” –Josh Kopelman
http://redeye.f...k_a_market.html
Don’t know, seems kind of end-of-an-era-ish. I totally get why, wikipedia blah social blah. But still.
Thoughts of middle school are rushing to mind…
Encarta would’ve had fizzled out whether Wikipedia existed or not. It’s the internet that killed it.
I’ve fond memories of Encarta from the 90s, when CD-ROM multimedia was within arm’s reach and downloading all that on a 56k would’ve taken days or even weeks. I liked the Encarta exhibits like the musical instrument samples, that opened my ears up to a lot of possibilities.
To this day, I prize the wealth of knowledge (and trivia) I’ve learned from Wikipedia, but it still isn’t the most multimedia-friendly: sound samples often presented in odd ways and a lot of goodies tend to be linked from pages instead of linked to them (altho this is entirely possible, as shown by the Widgets Mediawiki extension).
Creative destruction at its finest. Consumers benefit with each revolution!
Graham.
So funny to read everybodies comments, most (but not all i am glad to see) of which do not seem to have any idea of the use of internet resources in education..
But what makes me REALLY laugh is that nobody here seems to knows why Microsoft created Encarta in the first place.
Here’s a hint – it wasn’t to make money from selling a digital encyclopedia..
Shutting down Encarta is more than overdue. I expected it to vanish earlier. Wikipedia is the status quo irrespective of all the scolding that it is not 100% accurate – Neither was Encarta. I like the notion that Wikipedia is incessantly updated and at least 97% correct.
its a pity, wish i had the old cd-rom to remember the old times.
LOL, This is funny ‘For a full history of Encarta, be sure to check out its comprehensive Wikipedia entry, which has already been updated to reflect Encarta’s shutdown. Encarta’s entry on itself doesn’t mention anything about its demise, and actually seems to have less information than the Wikipedia article.’
What is the main difference between Wikipedia and Encarta or traditional encycolpedias? Wikipedia is governed by whole humanity, its not a commercial product, its a organizational world product handled by some philanthropists around the world with a very great due-deligence about the content management, categorization, unbiased entries and the importance of a very important term ‘USER-INTERFACE’ not for commercial gain or money, but to render a service to mankind
Microsoft can change Encarta into a product competing Wikipedia in the future but I don’t think Billy can charge even 1 cent in subscriptions from his new version of encyclopedia
If Billy is really a great philanthropist and a genuinely good and caring person for his fellow human beings (see his philanthropists quotes and lectures) – he should gift his Encarta articles to Wikipedia in CHARITY
Accept this fact : ‘KNOWLEDGE IS FOR ALL’
I hope Billy or his team reads my small comment and fulfills my wish lol…
weeeee ma qui siete tt inglesi? …cmq…
i like encarta! xo cm si scarica?? se qlcn capisce l’ italiano mi risponda x piacere
:):) please…and good luck!