Microsoft Encarta was a published by from 1993 to 2009. Originally sold on or , it was also later available on the World Wide Web via an annual subscription — although later many articles could also be viewed free online with advertisements. By 2008, the complete English version, Encarta Premium, consisted of more than 62,000 articles, numerous photos and illustrations, music clips, videos, interactive content, timelines, maps, atlases and homework tools. Localized versions contained contents licensed from national sources and more or less content than the full English version. For example, the Dutch version had content from the Dutch encyclopedia. In March 2009, Microsoft announced it was discontinuing both the Encarta disc and online versions. The Encarta site was closed on October 31, 2009 in all countries except , where it was closed on December 31, 2009. Microsoft continued to operate the Encarta online dictionary until 2011. In the late 1990s, Microsoft added content from and New Merit Scholar's Encyclopedia from into Encarta after purchasing them. Thus the final Microsoft Encarta can be considered the successor of the Funk and Wagnalls, Collier, and New Merit Scholar encyclopedias. None of these formerly successful encyclopedias remained in print for long after being merged into Encarta. Microsoft introduced several regional versions of Encarta translated into languages other than English. For example, the version was introduced in 1999 and suspended in 2002. The version was somewhat smaller than the English one, at 42,000 articles. Move to the web In 2000, the full Encarta content became available on the to subscribers, with a subset available for free to anyone. Demise In July 2006, Websters Multimedia, a 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 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 subscribers were refunded. The demise of Encarta was widely attributed to competition from the free and user-generated , which, from small beginnings in 2001, grew to be larger than Encarta, thanks to popularization by web search services like. By the time of the announcement of its closure in April 2009, Encarta had about 62,000 articles, most behind a , while the had over 2. By the time of Encarta 's closure in December 2009, the English Wikipedia had over 3. Encarta 's standard edition included approximately 50,000 articles, with additional images, videos and sounds. The premium editions contained over 62,000 articles and other content, such as 25,000 pictures and illustrations, over 300 videos and animations, and an interactive atlas with 1. Its articles were integrated with multimedia content and could include links to websites selected by its. Encarta 's articles in general were less lengthy and more summarized than the printed version of or the online. Like most multimedia encyclopedias, Encarta 's articles tended to provide an overview of the subject rather than an exhaustive coverage and can only be viewed one at a time. A sidebar could display alternative views, , journals or original materials relevant to the topic. For example, when reading about , it featured annals since 1967 of the computer industry. Encarta also supported for the hearing impaired. A separate program, called Encarta Research Organizer was included in early versions for gathering and organizing information and constructing a Word document-based report. Later versions included Encarta Researcher, a browser plugin to organize information from Encarta articles and web pages into research projects. Content copied from Encarta was appended with a boilerplate message after the selection. The user interface allowed for viewing content with only images, videos, sounds, animations, 360-degree views, virtual tours, charts and tables or only interactives. Encarta was originally available for sale on 1 to 5 or a. Some new PCs were shipped with an edition of Encarta. Microsoft had a separate product known as Encarta Africana which was an encyclopedia of black history and culture. It was integrated into the standard Encarta Reference suite starting with the 2001 version. Encarta 2002 and onward feature 3D Virtual Tours of ancient structures, for example the ; 2D panoramic images of world wonders or major cities; and a virtual flight feature which allows users to fly a virtual over a coarsely generated artificial area. Version 2002 also introduced the ability to install the entire encyclopedia locally to the hard disk drive to prevent frequent swapping of discs. Encarta 2003 incorporated literature guides and book summaries, foreign language translation dictionaries, a Homework Center and Chart Maker. Encarta 's Visual Browser, available since the 2004 version, presented a user with a list of related topics making them more discoverable. A collection of 32 videos were also later added. Encarta 2005 introduced another program called Encarta Kids aimed at children to make learning fun. For years, Encarta came in three primary software editions: Standard, Premium, and Reference Library price and features in that order. Beginning with Encarta 2006, however, when Websters Multimedia took over its maintenance, Encarta became a feature of Microsoft Student. Although it was possible to purchase only the Encarta encyclopedia separately, Microsoft Student bundles together Encarta Premium with a program and Learning Essentials, which provides templates for. In addition, the Reference Library was discontinued, absorbed into a newer, more comprehensive Premium package. Encarta 's user interface was shared with Microsoft Student, and was streamlined to reduce clutter with only a Search box which returned relevant results; however it became no longer possible to simply browse all the encyclopedia articles alphabetically. World Atlas The dynamic maps were generated with the same engine that powered software. The map was a that one could freely rotate and magnify to any location down to major streets for big cities. The globe had multiple surfaces displaying political boundaries, physical landmarks, historical maps and statistical information. One could selectively display statistical values on the globe surface or in a tabular form, different sized cities, various geological or man-made features and in a map. Encarta also generated a visible-light moon atlas with names of major and hyperlinks. However, it did not include a , but instead had a small interactive -only map. Some more advanced maps were : for example, the large African map for Africana could display information such as political boundaries or the distribution of African. An article written by addressed the nature of writing encyclopedias for different regions. Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium 2007 running on. Before the emergence of the for information browsing, Microsoft recognized the importance of having an engine that supported a , full text search, and extensibility using software objects. The display, and search software was created by a team of Division developers in the late 1980s who designed it as a generalized engine for uses as diverse as , and as ambitious as a multimedia encyclopedia. Encarta was able to use various Microsoft technologies because it was extensible with for displaying unique types of multimedia information. For example, a snap in map engine is adapted from its software. The hypertext and search engine used by Encarta also powered Encarta used database technologies to generate much of its multimedia content. For example, Encarta generated each zoomable map from a global database on demand. When a user used the function of Microsoft Windows on Encarta on more than five words, Encarta automatically appended a message after the paste. User editing Early in 2005, Gary Alt announced that the online Encarta started to allow users to suggest changes to existing articles. The bot could answer many encyclopedia related questions directly in the IM window. It used short sentences from the Encarta website, and sometimes displays full articles in the -based browser on the right. It also could complete simple mathematical and advanced algebra problems. This service was also available in , , and. Updates Each in the Northern hemisphere or in the Southern hemisphere , Microsoft published a new version of Encarta. However, despite the inclusion of news-related and some supplementary articles, Encarta 's contents had not been changed substantially in its later years. Besides the yearly update, the installed offline copy could be updated over the Internet for a certain period for free depending on the edition. Some articles usually about 2,000 were updated to reflect important changes or events. When the update period expired, an advertisement prompting to upgrade to the new version was displayed to the user occasionally. Archived from on 2005-08-11. CS1 maint: Archived copy as title MSN Search Encarta rather than MSN Encarta : Online Encyclopedia, Dictionary, Atlas, and Homework. Archived from PDF on August 10, 2007. The New York Times. Archived from on 2012-03-22. Retrieved 29 April 2010. Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia now comes in two versions: the award-winning Encarta 97 Encyclopedia on a single compact disc, and the new two-CD Encarta 97 Encyclopedia, Deluxe Edition. Archived from on 2011-06-04. Archived from the original on August 15, 2015. Retrieved July 25, 2015. Archived from the original on June 29, 2012. CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown , essay by Bill Gates reprinted in of South Africa, April 6, 1997, archived in 2012 and accessed Jan 9 2014.