I would agree
On 20 Jul 2007, at 17:46, Greg Kearney wrote:
I would agree. As for Microsoft, I spoke to a MS engineer once
about this. The feeling at NFB was that if Microsoft were to build
in a screen reader, and that was what Narrator was going to be,
that it would destroy the market for third party products like JAWS
and WindowEyes. It is worth pointing out here that both GW micro
and Freedom Scientific are major sponsors of the NFB conventions.
So anyway Microsoft backed away the only problem was that neither
the NFB nor Microsoft was aware of what Apple was doing with
VoiceOver. The result is that Microsoft felt as if they were
"snadbagged" by the NFB. Told not to develop an in the OS screen
reader only to have it competitor, Apple, do just what the NFB told
Microsoft not to do.
Now Microsoft is sitting here telling the blind that they must buy
a $800+ add on to use their product while Apple, Sun and soon Linux
give theirs away. According to this engineer Microsoft feels like
they have been taken advantage of and put into a difficult
competitive situation long term particularly with Macs running
Windows now as well.
It is this reason that I predict that Microsoft will either buy a
screen reader or develop their own in the next few years. With that
the third party screen reader market will die.
Greg
On Jul 20, 2007, at 08:21 , James Austin wrote:
Hi Greg
I agree completely and have said so on many occasions. It is one
of the duties that I envision the office of Accessibility
Evangelist at Apple would do. Now if we could just get Apple to
create such an office.
In some ways, it seems a little inconsistent with Apple's policy
on inclusiveness and their general ethos about computing for all.
Apple are as far as I can remember the only commercial operating
system creators who are actively pursuing accessibility for all,
of course, Microsoft were seemingly warned off by NFB, which again
seems inconsistent with the ultimate desires of organizations for
minorities; inclusion.
Take care
James
