Encarta distribution format World Wide Web
Move to the web and demise
In 2000, the full Encarta content became available on the World Wide Web to subscribers, with a subset available for free to anyone. In 2006, Websters Multimedia, a Bellevue, Washington subsidiary of London-based Websters International Publishers, took over maintenance of Encarta from Microsoft. The last version was Encarta Premium 2009, released in August 2008.
Microsoft announced in April 2009 that it would cease to sell Microsoft Student and all editions of Encarta Premium software products worldwide by June 2009, citing changes in the way people seek information, and in the traditional encyclopedia and reference material market, as the key reasons behind the termination. Updates for Encarta were offered until October 2009. Additionally, MSN Encarta web sites were discontinued around October 31, 2009, with the exception of Encarta Japan which was discontinued on December 31, 2009. Existing MSN Encarta Premium (part of MSN Premium) subscribers were refunded.The demise of Encarta was widely attributed to competition from the free and user-generated Wikipedia, which grew to be larger than Encarta from its early beginnings in 2001 thanks to popularization by web search services like Google. At the time of its closure in 2009, Encarta had about 62,000 articles, most behind a paywall, while the English-language Wikipedia had over 2.8 million articles in open access.
delivery method dissemination medium transmission format publishing mode circulation system