Can the world's biggest software giant take down the world's best-selling encylcopedia? We put the two educational references head to head in our Australian reviews.Traditional encyclopaedias had branched out into text-based electronic encyclopaedias by the mid-80s, and subsequently multimedia encyclopaedias appeared on CD-ROM around 1990. These days, most people with a computer can quickly research almost any topic on the Internet, with no risk of paper cuts.
However the sheer imensity of information on the Web can be daunting for students to comb through to find relevant knowledge and unfiltered content can be a deterrent for parents to give their children free reign on the Net. This is when pure, educational software such as Encarta or Britannica can be an invaluable resource for both students and parents.
Both of the offerings we've reviewed here offer online content updates for free. And both contain huge amounts of information suitable for a whole range of educational purposes. But which one is most appropriate for your needs? And if you already own a previous version of the software, is there any reason to upgrade to the latest version? Click on the links below to take a look at what we thought of them.
Microsoft Encarta 2004 Premium Suite
Microsoft impresses us this year by including video content from the Discovery Channel within Encarta. Other updates include a searchable book of over 20,000 quotations and an inventive way of browsing relationships between articles called the Visual Browser.
Britannica 2004 Ultimate Reference Suite
Britannica has a longer history in the encyclopaedia business than Microsoft, and while we haven't seen any door-to-door salespeople peddling the 32-volume printed set lately, that's probably due to products such as the Ultimate Reference Suite.
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