Microsoft Encarta

Encarta began in the mid- to late 1980s as a project driven by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. Microsoft had hoped to partner with Encyclopaedia BritannicaEncyclopædia BritannicaEncyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopedia first published in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1768; the name also refers to its publisher, Chicago-based Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. (which presents itself as The Britannica Group). The print edition ended in 2012, and the company’s main businesses since then have been the online encyclopedia Britannica.com, digital education products for schools and libraries, and Merriam-Webster dictionaries.Open the full entry to put encyclopedia content on CD-ROM for personal computer users; after being rebuffed, it turned in 1989 to the Funk & Wagnalls encyclopedia. A 2006 case history written by Shane Greenstein and Michelle Devereux for the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University argued that Microsoft could not build its encyclopedia on the highest-quality content and therefore invested in choice graphics and sound to add value to the product.⁠[1][1][1][1][1]

Encarta was first launched in 1993 and was seen as a direct competitor to traditional reference works such as Encyclopaedia Britannica. For years it was distributed on optical media before also moving to the web; it grew quickly in the mid- to late 1990s, being more convenient than book-based encyclopedias and available for a tiny fraction of their price.⁠[2][3][3]

Before the Internet became widespread, Encarta was one of the ways Microsoft tried to enhance the experience of PC users and sell computing to an unfamiliar public. Andrew Lih, an author on the history of Wikipedia, argued that Encarta could be seen as a me-too product meant to add value to the Microsoft software that came with Windows, and that Microsoft never invested enough resources to make it anything more than that.⁠[1][1][1][1]

Encarta 97 came in two versions, a single-disc standard edition and a two-CD Deluxe Edition, each containing more than 31,000 articles, 6,000 of them new or updated, with more than 1.5 million words of added text. The Deluxe Edition had roughly double the multimedia content of the standard edition, including 14,000 photos and illustrations, more than 2,300 audio clips, 970 maps and 150 videos and animations, as well as more than 5,000 pre-installed web links selected by editors; there was also a school edition with a teacher’s guide.⁠[4][4][4][4][4]

Microsoft unveiled a redesigned Encarta Online website (encarta.MSN.com), combining the content of the disc-based encyclopedia with the currency of the Internet and adding teaching tools for K–12 teachers and more than 13,000 links to third-party websites chosen by the Encarta editorial team. Microsoft said the site had been visited by nearly 1 million people in the previous month, and that more than half of the visitors in a survey came to find information for school projects.⁠[5][5][5][5][5]

Microsoft launched Encarta Online Deluxe, a subscription online encyclopedia priced at $49.95 a year with more than 40,000 articles, 9,300 photos and illustrations and 13,500 web links, offering it free as a preview until November 20, 1998. The site also kept free content, including the Encarta Concise Encyclopedia, an abridged version of the disc encyclopedia with more than 16,000 articles.⁠[6][6][6][6]

Microsoft expanded the Encarta.com website, introducing Encarta Enquire, a search tool that recognized natural-language questions, along with a directory of distance-learning and classroom courses, French and Spanish learning content and how-to guides for everyday skills; the site’s Encarta Reference section offered 17,000 full-length articles from Encarta Encyclopedia Deluxe. Microsoft at the time described Encarta as the No. 1-selling multimedia encyclopedia brand.⁠[2][2][2][2]

Microsoft released Encarta Reference Library 2003, bundling Encarta Encyclopedia Deluxe 2003, Encarta Interactive World Atlas, Encarta Dictionary and Thesaurus and Encarta Africana, and adding student tools such as a Homework Center, Literature Guides, translation dictionaries and Chart Maker; its content could be updated weekly over the Internet. The suite came on five CD-ROMs or a single DVD at an estimated retail price of $74.95. Citing NPD Techworld data on total U.S. retail sales from March 1993 to March 2002, Microsoft described Encarta as the No. 1 best-selling encyclopedia brand.⁠[7][7][7][7][7][7][7]

Microsoft’s MSN launched MSN Encarta Premium, an online subscription service that brought the content and tools of Encarta Reference Library 2004 to the web, including an online encyclopedia that could fill a 30-volume print set. The service went live that day in the United States and Japan, priced in the United States at $4.95 a month or $29.95 a year, and was to be included in the MSN Premium package launching on January 8, 2004.⁠[8][8][8][8][8][8]

Encarta began testing a system that let readers suggest changes or additions to entries, with suggestions vetted by editors before appearing on the page. Gary Alt, Encarta’s editorial director, said contributors did not have to identify themselves but were asked to give the source of their information where possible, and that editors would check for factual errors and bias; Encarta added research editors and fact checkers for the purpose.⁠[9][9][9][9]

On the Encarta FAQ page, Microsoft announced that MSN Encarta websites worldwide would be discontinued on October 31, 2009, with Encarta Japan following on December 31, 2009, and that it would stop selling Microsoft Student and Encarta Premium software products worldwide by June 2009. Subscribers to premium content received prorated refunds for the period after April 30 and could keep using the sites until October 31.⁠[10][10][11]

Microsoft said that Encarta had been popular around the world for many years, but that the category of traditional encyclopedias and reference material had changed and people now sought and consumed information in very different ways than in the past; to deliver the most effective and engaging resources for today’s consumers, it had decided to exit the Encarta business and would use what it had learned and the assets it had built with offerings like Encarta to develop future technology solutions. The announcement did not mention Wikipedia.⁠[3][3][3][12]

Noam Cohen of The New York Times argued that Encarta could not compete with Wikipedia, a free, collaboratively written encyclopedia. Data from the web traffic service Hitwise showed that in January 2009 Wikipedia received 97 percent of U.S. visits to online encyclopedias, while second-placed Encarta received 1.27 percent. Andrew Lih noted that the Corbis image library bought by Bill Gates had given Encarta access to images that Wikipedia could not obtain, and Mathias Schindler, an administrator of the German Wikipedia, emailed Microsoft asking it to release Encarta material it no longer planned to use.⁠[1][1][1][1]