Cheryl is correct. The Acapela voices for use with Jaws and other
screen readers are much more expensive (several times more
expensive). That is one of the reasons it took so long to convince
Acapela Group to offer the exact same voices for a lower price on the
Mac side. I cannot discuss the details publicly, but let's just say
that it has taken about two years to arrive where we are now. Alex
was one factor in getting there, but not decisive and Alex has
nothing to do with the fact that all languages are now a lot cheaper
than when Infovox iVox was first introduced. If Alex was the issue,
only the American English voices would have been permanently lowered
in price. We, and now I am speaking for both Acapela Group and
AssistiveWare, really want to bring these high quality voices with in
reach of many more Mac users. We can't really go any lower then this
without negative consequences for Acapela Group's other voice markets.
david.
On Oct 15, 2007, at 6:36 PM, Cheryl Homiak wrote:
I can tell you that I wanted to buy ryan and Heather directly from
Acapella for my Windows machine; they had to be bought with their
engine; I think the whole package was called iVox desktop or
something like that. I don't remember exactly the price quote I was
given--probably still have it somewhere--but I can tell you it was
VERY expensive. I did use the evaluation package download for 60
days and was able to get those voices from nextup.com just for use
with Text Alound and Weather Aloud but can't use them with
Windoweyes or Jaws as the purchase was only for use with the nextup
products. All of this is just to say that the Acapella voices are
very expensive and both David and Acapella are to be commended that
they are being offered for this price on the Mac. I have no doubt
that David had to do some lobbying to arrange this. Whether the new
voice from Leopard was a factor or not i don't know, but the
acappella product for Windows does cost. It's also excellent and
I'd pay for it for windows too if I could afford it.
