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•Microsoft shuts Encarta, Wikipedia gives up on Wikia Search
National Business Review, New Zealand
Microsoft will close the book on its online encyclopaedia on October 31. Wikipedia bares some of the blame, but has its own problems. During the 1990s, Microsoft’s Encarta encyclopaedia, using content licensed from little-known Funk & Wagnalls, ...

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•What Was Encarta? Look It Up on Wikipedia
PC World
Within the last few days Microsoft quietly announced it is killing its Encarta encyclopedia, with the actual date of death October, 2009. What it hinted at, but didn't quite say, was that Wikipedia killed it. The announcement about Encarta's impending ...

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•Microsoft to shutter online encyclopedia Encarta this year ...
Fox 13 Now - Salt Lake City, Utah
By AP REDMOND, Wash. (AP) — Microsoft Corp.'s digital encyclopedia, Encarta, might have pushed its printed competitors off the shelves in some homes. Now Encarta itself has fallen victim to changes in technology, made all but obsolete by the likes of ...

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OUCH!

Yes but my prediction: pretty soon the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is going to own Jimmy Wales. I hope they make him shave half his beard.

Wikipedia's budget is what? $7 million/year?

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•Microsoft Encarta dies after long battle with Wikipedia
Deccan Herald, India
Microsoft delivered the coup de grâce on Monday to its dying Encarta encyclopedia, acknowledging what everyone else realised long ago: it just couldn’t compete with Wikipedia, a free, collaborative project that has become the leading encyclopedia on ...

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•Microsoft's Encarta falls victim to Wikipedia
Visit Bulgaria, Bulgaria
Microsoft on Tuesday announced that it was terminating its Encarta online encyclopedia, as the world's largest software company found it too difficult to compete with the challenge of its collaborative competitor Wikipedia. ...

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•Encarta falls victim to the Wikipedia's juggernaut
The Age, Australia
Microsoft plans to close its Encarta online encyclopedia, which competes in an arena dominated by communally-crafted free internet reference source Wikipedia. The US software colossus said that on October 31 it would turn off all its Encarta websites ...

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•Encarta falls victim to the Wikipedia juggernaut
Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
Microsoft plans to close its Encarta online encyclopedia, which competes in an arena dominated by communally-crafted free internet reference source Wikipedia. The US software colossus said that on October 31 it would turn off all its Encarta websites ...

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•Encarta falls victim to the Wikipedia juggernaut
Brisbane Times, Australia
Microsoft plans to close its Encarta online encyclopedia, which competes in an arena dominated by communally-crafted free internet reference source Wikipedia. The US software colossus said that on October 31 it would turn off all its Encarta websites ...

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•Encarta falls victim to the Wikipedia juggernaut
The Age, Australia
Microsoft plans to close its Encarta online encyclopedia, which competes in an arena dominated by communally-crafted free internet reference source Wikipedia. The US software colossus said that on October 31 it would turn off all its Encarta websites ...

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Yes. You can always buy a poor board of directors by subtly and not-so-subtly bribing them. That will include Jimbo, too, of course.

We may be seeing a preliminary move in that direction. Microsoft's general modus operandi in the past has been not to buy anything it can steal-and-copy. But if necessary, it will buy it if it has to. The same with the Gates Foundation which is already the natural takeover entity. Giving up Encarta means somebody will probably be making WMF a serious offer of some kind, couched as a Large Donation. Which comes with a Large Expansion of board seats. To be filled as dictated by Microsoft the Gates Foundation. Anyway, Bill. Following which WMF will be found to be running according to some other CEO's dictates. And not a nice pudgy one.

The current board and Jimbo all get golden parachutes (Jimbo's goes for a new golden washer for his ex), and that's it. A New Wikipedia, probably with no name change.

They'll all pretend that it doesn't belong to Bill, of course. The interesting thing is what the editors will do. My guess is, scream. But what can they do except keep editing or leave?

My question is does the GFDL structure disappear at that time, or remain? One presumes we'll see AdSense on the new WP, but who gets the money? The Gates Foundation? Wouldn't it be rich irony if (after all the dust settles) editing WP actually DOES end up helping dusty kids in Africa?