In 2000, the full Encarta content became available on the World Wide Web to subscribers, with a subset available for free to anyone. The Spanish version was somewhat smaller than the English one, at 42,000 articles. For example, the Brazilian Portuguese version was introduced in 1999 and suspended in 2002. Microsoft introduced several regional versions of Encarta translated into languages other than English. None of these formerly successful encyclopedias remained in print for long after being merged into Encarta. Thus the final Microsoft Encarta can be considered the successor of the Funk and Wagnalls, Collier, and New Merit Scholar encyclopedias. In the late 1990s, Microsoft added content from Collier's Encyclopedia and New Merit Scholar's Encyclopedia from Macmillan into Encarta after purchasing them. The name Encarta was created for Microsoft by an advertising agency and launched in 1993 as $395 product, although it soon dropped to $99, and was often bundled into the price of a new computer purchase. (Funk & Wagnalls continued to publish revised editions for several years independently of Encarta, but then ceased printing in the late 1990s.) Launch Microsoft continued to operate the Encarta online dictionary at until 2011.Īfter the successes of Compton's Multimedia Encyclopedia (1989) and The New Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia (1992), Microsoft initiated Encarta, under the internal codename "Gandalf", by purchasing non-exclusive rights to the Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia, incorporating it into its first edition in 1993. The MSN Encarta site was closed on Octoin all countries except Japan, where it was closed on December 31, 2009.
In March 2009, Microsoft announced it was discontinuing both the Encarta disc and online versions.
For example, the Dutch version had content from the Dutch Winkler Prins encyclopedia. Localized versions contained contents licensed from national sources and more or less content than the full English version. Microsoft published similar encyclopedias under the Encarta trademark in various languages, including German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese and Japanese. By 2008, the complete English version, Encarta Premium, consisted of more than 62,000 articles, numerous photos and illustrations, music clips, videos, interactive contents, timelines, maps, atlases and homework tools. Originally available for sale on multiple CDs or a DVD, it was later also available on the World Wide Web via an annual subscription – although later many articles could also be viewed free online with advertisements. Microsoft Encarta was a digital multimedia encyclopedia published by Microsoft Corporation from 1993 to 2009.
0 kommentar(er)
