Well I would agree of course. But if your working at one of those
companies you would feel differently about it I'm sure. By the way
where can you buy Jaws or WindowEyes for only $300?
Greg
On Jul 20, 2007, at 12:59 , CHRISTOPHER PEPPEL wrote:
My only comment on this is, that technology and life move on. Yes,
it would
be to bad to see a third party vendor go out of business, but so did
the
horse ande buggy when cars came along. Did this stop the
automobile? No.
The same holds true for the cellphone as well. Why should we be
forced to
pay $300 extra for software so that we can fully utilize it.
Chris
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Greg Kearney
Sent: Friday, July 20, 2007 12:47 PM
To: General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac OS
X by the
blind
Subject: Re: Sight Village 2007 - Mac and Braille support
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
