[Sicarius]

When I first saw this, I had to do a double take. I made sure it wasn't April 1 at least three times before I conceded. While looking around Encarta's homepage today, I stumbled on a message that Microsoft was getting rid of MSN Encarta completely: "On October 31, 2009, MSN Encarta Web sites worldwide will be discontinued, with the exception of Encarta Japan, which will be discontinued on December 31, 2009. Additionally, Microsoft will cease to sell Microsoft Student and Encarta Premium software products worldwide by June 2009." Looks like employees at Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica will be throwing parties tonight.

Full Story: http://arstechnica.c...r-this-year.ars

[c0lin]

It's about time. Though I don't think others will throw parties, I wouldn't throw a party if one of my competitors closed shop.

[CliffMasterSneee]

Oh well, MSN Encarta was never good for anything anyway.

[Bravo]

To be honest, they have 'Bing Reference' now which is ran off the Wikimedia Foundations engine. I expect most of the things there are from Encarta too.

[amon91]

It wasn't competitive anyway. Most people these days look things up online for free, installing a piece of software was an old approach. Glad it's gone.