Hi Joseph and others. I also appreciate your putting things in
context and I apologize for keeping the thread going but I have
not had my say yet. I remember Dean Jackson and want to pay
tribute to him, since he helped many but people out on this list
before his life was tragically cut short when he had an epileptic
fit whilst showering and drowned.
Thinking of Dean, I think he would be appalled at how the ethos
of HumanWare has now changed since its move from New zealand to
Canada. I am begging those HumanWare reps on this list,
especially from America and Canada, to remember that Pulse Data
ethos which was what created this great company, to remember the
little guys and not just the rich ones, to remember countries
like Australia and New Zealand when offering specials and
upgrades. For quite some times, Australian users couldn't use
the Bookshare part of the KeySoft upgrades yet they had to pay
the same price. It wasn't that they chose not to: the American
government did not allow them to access BookShare books until
quite recently. I don't believe that the engineer who started
PuleDate would have been so uncaring about the needs of a whole
country's worth of potential customers.
Please, HumanWare, competition should be the best motivator for
excellence in service in prod-ct upgrades.
OK. I've had my say. Thanks for reading.
Michele
Sent from my BrailleNote APEX
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Nusbaum" <[email protected]
To: "'Joseph Lee'"
<[email protected]>,<[email protected]
Date sent: Tue, 26 Jun 2012 10:43:40 -0400
Subject: RE: [Braillenote] Mergers, transfers and customers
Hi Joseph,
Thank you for the clarification.
Chris
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
Joseph Lee
Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2012 9:52 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Braillenote] Mergers, transfers and customers
Hi,
I hope this would be the final message on this whole merger of
PDI and HW
topics. Hope you find the following story useful.
Once upon a time, there was an engineer who had a vision to
enhance lives of
others. He had a profound heart for people with disabilities,
especially for
those who are blind and visually impaired. Thus, he started a
company in New
Zealand in 1980's to promote a product that, according to his
vision, would
have made computers simple to operate. Thus KeySoft was born in
1986, and
hence, his company, named PulseData came to life.
In 1990's, with the boom in Internet and PC use, this engineer
built a
computer that was ahead of even some mainstream devices at that
time.
Although it was a humble device in the beginning, this computer
proved to be
a success in some circles and later donated its name and workings
to a PDA
that resembles its operations today: KeyNote series, and its PdA
version
known as Braille and KeyNote Companion, which in turn became
basis for
BrailleNote in 2000. Also in 1990's, PulseData expanded its
reach to
Americans and beyond, eventually partnering with a small company
in
California known as HumanWare, and making it its American
distributor and
hence forming PulseData HumanWare.
In 2000, PulseData International (PDI), as the New Zealand
company called
itself, released BrailleNote family (back then, it was an older
Classic). It
was revolutionary at that time, using a well-known operating
system present
on some mainstream PDA's and having the ability to send and
receive emails.
Few years later, PDI's competetors introduced quite a few
challengers to
BrailleNote, including upgraded notetakers and brand new devices
with
different concept from that of KeySoft. This competition is
still ongoing,
although the focus is now shifting to wireless braille displays.
As for the
BrailleNote, it was upgraded as well, culminating in significant
software
upgrade after a leader in notetaking devices merged with a
producer of
talking book players up north in 2007 and revived an old name for
the entire
merger (PDI and Visuaide in Canada merged in 2007 shortly before
the fall
and renamed the entity to HumanWare Group).
However, the rebirth party of HumanWare was short lived, as its
founder,
piloting an airplane, crashed and left this earthly realm. Then
a New
Zealander took over, but after a few years, the former head of
Visuaide took
over the company and relocated its headquarters to Canada, while
announcing
new products, upgrades and promotions. And this is the status of
HumanWare
today.
I left out Jolimont Capital's investment story out of this
picture to
clarify which company was which and to clarify key events and
dates only.
Cheers,
Joseph
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