Microsoft Encarta discontinued

This article says that Microsoft has decided to discontinue their encyclopedia software, known as Microsoft Encarta. The obvious reason for this is that Encarta has been utterly dwarfed by Wikipedia, which has 2.7 million different entries to Encarta's 42,000.

I am only familiar with this program because I had a Windows PC in the 90's, when Encarta was first released. To people younger than me, this is not of the least significance. Wikipedia has been popular for a while now, so I wouldn't be surprised if most internet users aren't even aware of Encarta.

This is however of significance for anyone worried about the reliability of Wikipedia. Encarta has so few entries because they are written professionally and reliably. The public has spoken, and their attitude is that it is better to be at risk of finding false information submitted by an anonymous user than it is to rely on the limitations of professionally written encyclopedias.