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.