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Story: Encarta's demise speaks volumes

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Encarta Demise

It'll be sad to see Eacarta go, I used to find it so useful years ago, but as this article points out, Wikipedia, Google and the internet are the real reasons it is finishing. It's years since I have put the Encarta DVD into my computer (years ago, I used to leave it in the computer, I even had a dedicated slot loading drive for it on my PC to avoid scratching it!), it was so handy to refer to while studying.

I'll never forget the Encarta Atlas, to this day, I haven't seen a comparable level of interactivity in any 'map based' program. Google maps and Google earth are good, but once Encarta atlas was cached on the local machine, it was brilliant looking, and fun to play with - it ran so fast (as any local application would I suppose). Google earth has to pull the data from the net (because theres so much of it), Encarta had it all there, it really had to be seen to be believed.

The 'define' menu which appeared in Microsoft Word that linked to the Encarta dictionary was a saviour, and much better than the current define menu. It would be nice to see Microsoft merge the Encarta dictionary into Word, it's similar to the dictionary available on MacOS - which is nice too.

Anyway, many thanks Microsoft for this one, Windows drives me mad sometimes, but you really got it right with Encarta, its a shame to see it go.

John - Ireland (jjcos@hotmail.com)

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