2009/3/31 David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com:
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.
Oh totally agreed. I haven't used Encarta recently, but in its heyday (and my schooldays) it was a fantastic educational resource. I think it was also my first introduction to hypertext, and I suspect so for many others too. In fact for students at the time, I'd go so far as to say it was Microsoft's "killer app".
I think the challenge now is for Wikipedia to try and fill the gap it has made. Despite Encarta's disadvantages (cost, slow to update) it had excellent multimedia - something Wikipedia is sadly lacking in. Also its structured guides to topics were great, especially in the later versions.
Pete / the wub