at below book value in 1996 when the print sales could no longer compete with Encarta and the Microsoft distribution channel which focused on bundling copies with new computer systems. Microsoft had originally approached Encyclopædia Britannica, the gold standard of encyclopedias for over a century, in the 1980s, but it declined, believing its print media sales would be hurt however the Benton Foundation was forced to sell Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. (Funk & Wagnalls continued to publish revised editions for several years independently of Encarta, but then ceased printing in the late 1990s.) Previously having been referred to by the codename "Gandalf," the name Encarta was created for Microsoft by an advertising agency. Microsoft initiated Encarta by purchasing non-exclusive rights to the Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia, incorporating it into its first edition in 1993. In 1990, when it was called The New Grolier Electronic Encyclopedia (1988-1991), still pictures were added, The Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia CD-ROM first appeared in 1992 as The New Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. Grolier's 1985 Academic American Encyclopedia on CD-ROM was text-only. īritannica's 1989 Compton's Multimedia Encyclopedia was the first "multimedia" CD-ROM encyclopedia. The Encarta online dictionary at will continue to be operated by Microsoft. Japan's Encarta site was closed on December 31, 2009. The MSN Encarta site in all countries except Japan was closed on October 31, 2009. In March 2009, Microsoft announced it was discontinuing the Encarta disc and online versions. For example, the Dutch version has content from the Dutch Winkler Prins encyclopedia. Localized versions may contain contents licensed from available national sources and may contain more or less content than the full English version. Microsoft published similar encyclopedias under the Encarta trademark in various languages, including German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese and Japanese. Many articles could also be viewed online free of charge, a service supported by advertisements. As of 2008, the complete English version, Encarta Premium, consisted of more than 62,000 articles, numerous photos and illustrations, music clips, videos, interactivities, timelines, maps and atlas, and homework tools, and was available on the Internet by yearly subscription or by purchase on DVD-ROM or multiple CD-ROMs. Microsoft Encarta was a digital multimedia encyclopedia published by Microsoft from 1993 to 2009.
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