Launched in 1993, it seemed to be everywhere in those early days - from schools, universities and offices, to the bargain bins of computer retailers. And it seems just a little sad that its time may be finally up. E-week is reporting that as of the end of August, Encarta will no longer be sold in retailers and the online edition will also be closed down.

Encarta 2009 featured just 62,000 articles, where as Wikipedia is available in multiple languages and serves over 2,800,000 articles - quite a difference. That's not to say that all of Wikipedia's content is to be completely trusted, but then perhaps it's not a concern for many people.

In recent times, Google's Knol service with over 100,000 user written pages has placed even greater competitive pressure on Encarta, making Microsoft's decision to pull out of the encylopedia game an understandable decision. We will miss you Encarta.