Ray Saintonge wrote:
While I can't be sure that Encarta was
specifically responsible for
this, in principal that's what happened. For Britannica, Encarta was the
first shoe to drop, and Wikipedia was the second. Among other general
encyclopedias there were Collier's, Funk and Wagnalls
... Encarta *is* Funk and Wagnalls. MS bought the content and
refurbished it a little bit. Their consideration was that F&W's image
and band name was not that important, so "Encarta" was created as a MS
brand name.
Except for the Dutch Encarta, all other versions stem from this.