Q: Would you agree that the Britannica and the Encarta cater to different market segments and that the Britannica provides more in-depth coverage of its topics while the Encarta is a more complete, PC-orientated reference experience? If so, what is the market positioning of the Britannica’s Elementary and Student Encyclopedias?
TP: The most important thing about Britannica’s Ultimate Reference Suite is that https://atlaspro-iptv.online/
is has three encyclopedias — one for every reading level – and therefore can be used profitably by the whole family. So, yes, the Encyclopaedia Britannica itself is the more comprehensive encyclopedia, but realize also that the Ultimate Reference Suite also has Britannica Student Encyclopedia, created for the same age range as Encarta, and Britannica Elementary Encyclopedia, for younger readers.
So our positioning is that Britannica serves you from grade school to graduate school and beyond.
Q: Both encyclopedias offer an embarrassment of riches. Users find the wealth and breadth of information daunting and data mining is fast becoming an art form. Encarta introduced the Visual (Virtual) Browser and Britannica introduced the BrainStormer to cope with this predicament. Are there any improvements – or alternative solutions – planned in future editions?
TP: The 2006 edition will include search enhancements to BrainStormer. They’re under development right now, so I don’t have too many details. We also have some unique indexing systems that underlie the structure of the Britannica database, which our indexers have been at work on for years. We expect these to be the basis of some powerful search and
browse applications in the years ahead.