Microsoft Announces End of the Road for Encarta
Microsoft's years-long-running multimedia CD-based encyclopedia product, Encarta, will be history by the end of the year. According to Ars Technica, Microsoft quietly announced the discontinuation date for Encarta to be October 31, 2009. Although the MSN press release doesn't go into too much detail on all the reasons why this decision was made, (nothing about Wikipedia for example), they do mention that the way people look for and consume information has changed substantially in the last few years, which seems like a fair assessment.
It appears that all Encarta properties will be phased out over the coming year. They will stop selling the retail and student versions by June and the online MSN Explorer content will be removed by the end of October. Customers paying for a subscription to Encarta Premium will receive a pro-rated refund around the middle of the year. Technical support, like with most other Microsoft products, will continue for three years after the official end of life.
As we mentioned, although Microsoft doesn't directly implicate Wikipedia as one of the harbingers of their decision to kill Encarta, we can only assume that it is a big part of that decision. Although Encarta's content was carefully curated, and of course factually accurate (which is often more than what you can say about Wikipedia), apparently the cost and availability of instant sources of information online has overcome the appeal of this once-novel encyclopedia.
Speaking for a moment about novelty, I do remember clearly getting my first CD-ROM drive in the mid-90s and then shelling out some hard-earned money for Encarta because it was simply the de facto proof of concept for the term multimedia. Hundreds of thousands of articles, indexed and cross-referenced, high-resolution photographs, small videos, and sound files all made the Encarta experience something singularly awesome in a time where most people were still trying to figure out how to allocate all their extended memory to get Windows 3.1 to run on their PC. Encarta brought a legitimacy to that term, multimedia, where a lot of other projects often fell short. And no, you can't bring up Myst.
So, it is with a measure of sadness that we see this chapter of PC history come to a close, and the venerable Encarta book placed on the shelf next to Microsoft Cinemania and BOB. Although the date will come and go without fanfare, it does mark the end of an era.
Share
Facebook
Comments
Subscribe to comments for this post OR Subscribe to comments for all ReadWriteWeb posts
Didn't see any info about the CD-ROM version in the article.
Actually this is pretty sad. Back in the day, this was something that Microsoft did well - it is too bad that this product died. Another tombstone for Microsoft service offerings ....
I haven't heard that name in years, ten at best, probably more. I remember getting my 486 Packard Bell and that junk was on it...
I will say it's easy to bag these old mediums but somehow, comparing them to the ever misleading site of Wikipedia is a bit of a low blow. Wikipedia is full of half-truths, as much as I use it... it's certainly not what I would consider a good encyclopedia. It only took me a few edits before I could go and wreak havoc on it.
I'll get you next year "Canada Day." Book it.
and yet, Brittanica and World Book remain
Posted by: Christina Pikas
|
March 30, 2009 7:02 PM
Microsoft should have their Encarta team work on uploading all of their content to Wikipedia to properly inter this great product. There is a lot of good content in Encarta that no doubt took a lot of expert effort to produce. They should not let this content just die uselessly. Merge it into Wikipedia, MS! The world will thank you! And you have more than enough time between now and October 31, 2009 to do this well!
wow such a great product, sad to see it go....
Too bad, if unsurprising. Encarta managed to build a mediocre encyclopedia (the F&W textbase) into a very nice product--but probably never came close to covering costs. +1 for Christina's comment; both of those have managed to establish singular identities, which helps (I think).
Posted by: Walt Crawford
|
March 31, 2009 7:51 AM
I was fond of this. I also remember this being my first cd-rom product and it really delivered. video...
see ya later encarta, thanks for the 411.
MYST! I thought I'd just bring it up :-)
I think they should make Encarta available online for free. I'm sure they could find a company that would be willing to host it, if they didn't want the expense.
Wikipedia may have its issues, but Encarta was not without its own... there were many errors but also the horrible situation that the content of Encarta was always altered to match the prevailing view of the world of a specific country when sold in that country - resulting in 'History is written by the winners' scenarios.
At least Wikipedia has a vibrant battle to enforce a more prevailing view of the world rather than one persons.
If this includes the online version encarta.msn.com. This is very dissapointing. Encarta is a nice source for just general information when you want it to be accurate on subjects like the biological make up of a cell or a picture of a human skeleton and their atlas is really good too. I hope they keep up encarta.msn.com that is a really good website!!! Britannica is kind of okay but I mean Encarta always had some really nice resources like pictures that were nice for use in presentations and posters. So I really hope the online version stays because not having Encarta or any encyclopedias online for that matter apart from Wikipedia, you loose some really handy resource.
I really liked the way Encarta is laid out. The links cross reference, it's a good start for a computer encyclopedia. I know World Book was a favorite growing up and I did buy the CD version some years ago. Brittanica I have not used but will look into this as well. And Encarta was formed back in 1993, when the software company bought rights for the Funk & Wagnalls encyclopedia as they looked to create a digital version. This is a sad day to hear that this wonderful piece of software is gonna be trashed because of Wikipedia's popularity? What are these people thinking. Just as I would figure throw education down the tubes for a profit. WOW I really hope someone can save this software. If I knew how to I would. I have enjoyed using this for information because we used World Book growning up and this is a digital version that you can get updates for via the web. Well I really can't believe Microsoft is letting this gem in the rough go. The possiblities to make this even more advanced is endless. I wish I knew how to buy the rights and improve this for the sake of the future of learning. To give this as a gift for anyone wanting to learn more about the world is priceless. Wikipedia is really nothing that special because anyone can change the content at anytime. Strange that someones opinon would alter a resource like this. Well good luck Encatra.
Great product ..
Didn't see any info about the CD-ROM version in the article.
Great product and a proper shame!!