Britannica in its various incarnations and Encarta were excellent and useful reference works. Britannica remains useful. Encarta I think could have remained useful also. I really regret that we had a role in killing it. Why should we be pleased? The commercial organizations need to compete. We do not. The more encyclopedias the better.
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 11:51 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
[spotted by Mathias Schindler]
http://encarta.msn.com/guide_page_FAQ/FAQ.html
Important Notice: MSN Encarta to be Discontinued On October 31, 2009, MSN® Encarta® Web sites worldwide will be discontinued, with the exception of Encarta Japan, which will be discontinued on December 31, 2009. Additionally, Microsoft will cease to sell Microsoft Student and Encarta Premium software products worldwide by June 2009. We understand that Encarta users may have questions regarding this announcement so we have prepared this list of questions and answers below. Please keep reading if you would like more information about these changes to Encarta.
- d.
I think this casts a new interesting perspective on the decision by Microsoft to buy out powerset.com.
I will be watching with interest, how they will develop that product, and whether they intend to incorporate it more extensively into their other product offerings.
I have to admit I was skeptical initially when I heard powerset.com would be "gobbled up". But should it turn out that Microsoft were to really seriously put effort into powerset.com, any relief Encyclopaedia Britannica may have gained from the reduction of competition for number two spot, may prove a little short lived. That is unless of course Microsoft/Powerset make some kind of deal with EB that they can use powersets semantic search engine on also EB product.
Of course it is possible that MS have made the judgment that the whole sector is not good for them, but actually I would prefer to be hopeful that this means they would give more impetus to powerset now. I personally think powerset is currently the best interface for wikipedia, bar none.
On the gripping hand, if developing powerset is not on the cards for Microsoft, perhaps now that they have decided to not hold onto encarta, they might be persuadable to sell powerset off, since holding on to it is not fending off a competitor to encarta. The question of course then would be, who would be willing to buy powerset off their hands?
Yours,
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
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