Hi Alex,
I agree with you! Now, if you talked to an HW exec, like Jiles
Pepin or any of those people, they'd probably justify their
unreasonable charges this way, which, in perspective, I
understand: it's the economic rule of supply and demand. If
there is less supply and more demand, the prices will go down.
If there's more supply and less demand, then the prices will go
down. The blind market (as many companies call it) is a very
small market, because blind people are in the minority of the
population, both in the US and throughout the world. There must
also be special accomodations made for this market to buy a
technological product. So, the companies have to make their
money somehow, and it's, as one of my friends puts it, "a small
blind world." Plus, as mainstream technology has become more
accessible through screen readers, refreshable Braille displays
that sync to a computer or smartphone, among other things, the
demand for a specialized notetaker has gone down in the small
blind market that's out there (in other words, the small has
gotten smaller,) so the price needs to go up on the upgrades and
accessories. I'm not saying I agree with HW's charges, but I
think it can be justified. Does this make any sense?
Chris
"A loss of sight, never a loss of vision!" (Camp Abilities motto)
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Maryland have the ability to confidently say "I can!" How? Click
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Sent from my BrailleNote
----- Original Message -----
From: Alex Hall <[email protected]
To: Sabahattin
Gucukoglu<[email protected]
Date sent: Wed, 27 Jul 2011 12:03:10 -0400
Subject: Re: [Braillenote] Yes, But ...
I agree. The only way Humanware can save the bn family is to do
three things:
1. Stop charging $200 per upgrade. I could almost buy an entire
iPod
for one upgrade, and an iPad for three. When an entire OS
(Microsoft
Windows) does not cost that much, and when Mac upgrades are $30,
I
fail to see how a $200 upgrade can be justified? The newer
upgrades
don't even offer significant features that users have been asking
for,
and the free upgrade for the apex that was supposed to deliver
Word
2007 compatibility failed to do so. Yes, I am glad to be able to
open
documents with complex formatting, but this upgrade was supposed
to
support Word 2007 and it does not. I just hope that said support
does
not arrive in the next paid upgrade, since Humanware stated that
2007
support would be free.
2. Offer a FREE SDK. HIMS offers their sdk for the Sense line
for
free, meaning that anyone who writes a program for the Sense does
not
have to charge much, if anything, for it to recover the initial
cost
of the sdk. HIMS also has a history of offering free upgrades,
so I am
afraid that if Humanware ever does offer an sdk, it will not be
free
and could, in fact, cost a great deal of money.
3. Stop charging so much for add-ons, and offer more of them.
Who is
going to pay $200 for a dictionary? No one, unless you are on a
bn,
apparently. $200 seems like $190 too much, in my opinion. What
about
other programs, like an expansion to Keyplus or a more robust
chat
program, or even a twitter client? Many users will not use these,
so
offering them as cheap installers could be the way to go.
On 7/27/11, Sabahattin Gucukoglu <[email protected]>
wrote:
It's all very well harping on about how great braille notetakers
are because
they do braille, and I agree emphatically, but what about the
very real
problem that they are crippled by their software suites?
Honestly, HumanWare are going down the same path as Freedom
Scientific, only
they're doing it with reasonably decent hardware.
BTW, the Apex is with me here in my laptop case, but the laptop
(MacBook Air
11 inch) is getting all the use. Even Frotz works well enough
that I can
avoid the Games application on the BN. The only thing the BN is
good for
now is the dictionary and text editor. It has, as I predicted,
no media
files to play and no Internet connection, but I've loaded up an
SD card with
documents and games, so maybe when I'm travelling a bit lighter.
Cheers,
Sabahattin
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--
Have a great day,
Alex (msg sent from GMail website)
[email protected]; http://www.facebook.com/mehgcap
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