Tuesday, May 05, 2009
The end of Encarta -- and of the mystique of Microsoft.
Another Microsoft product goes down.
Microsoft hasn't had a real success with a new product for good long time now. It's stock has become a "me too" member of the stock market, performing modestly poorer than the S&P 500 over the last decade.
Here's a stock chart for Microsoft (red), the S&P 500 (green) and Apple (blue) since January 1, 2007.
Another Microsoft product goes down.
This is the end of the line for Encarta, the encyclopedia that Microsoft introduced in 1993 ... The Google-indexed Web forms a virtual encyclopedia that Encarta never had a chance of competing against.But even focus groups can't see the future. Encarta had a moderately successful run for a decade or so at a price falling from $99 to $29.95.
Encarta was conceived pre-Web and had a long gestation. In 1985, Bill Gates envisioned a CD-ROM encyclopedia as a “high-price, high-demand” product with the potential of becoming as profitable to Microsoft as Word or Excel...
Early in the project’s history, a focus group of prospective customers was convened, and participants said they would happily pay $1,000 to $2,000 for a multimedia encyclopedia on CD-ROM ... [NY Times]
Microsoft hasn't had a real success with a new product for good long time now. It's stock has become a "me too" member of the stock market, performing modestly poorer than the S&P 500 over the last decade.
Here's a stock chart for Microsoft (red), the S&P 500 (green) and Apple (blue) since January 1, 2007.
