Hmmmm, looks to me like a some one complaining in an ultra
professional forum ain a highly unprofessional manner. I've been
known to do that myself a time or two I suppose. In fact,
this becomes a rant to some degree I notice as I read it back. It
feels good to get it off my chest though. It's been dogging me for
months since I started this job especially. You might want to stop
here though if you are easily upset or you just don't want to read the
O/T stuff.
So to be getting on... I really think though that people confuse
expensive and good value for money, and that's why they get so angry
about this. We have this discussion on the mobile speak pocket list
once in a while too. Being blind is expensive because there aren't
enough of us to bring the price point down. Still there is expensive
and there is value for money. Window-eyes for example, is very
expensive, $795 US, but it can be had on payments which no other
screen reader can, and it has all the functionality built into the top
jaws package priced at $1295. Window-eyes is also more stable and
consistant tested over numerous machines and is not locked down with
an ILM. One is good value for money, and one is just plum expensive.
There's also the issue of return on investment. Window-eyes is good
value for money because I can carry it with me on site on my jump
drive and use it in the ocasional service stint I go out for. In other
words, it makes me money. Maybe not a lot, but there's definitely
some return there. That is good value, and for me, jaws wouldn't be
because although I can use it in that way, it's crippled by the ILM
and not ideally suited for the purpose. If you are working in a bank,
and the bank paid for high powered software scripts, maybe jaws is a
good investment for you, but if it's not an investment, no matter what
screen reader you buy it's a lot of money.
That's not why I'm dead opposed to jaws though although I think those
are good reasons. You would disagree with me as is your privilage.
You might even be offended if jaws is dear to your hart, and I'm sorry
about that since that isn't my intent. The real reason I'm opposed to
jaws is that my clients have it forced on them. It's possible to buy
other products, but it's not possible to be competantly assessed for
them. Now 3 months ago I've started working for a company that sells
these computers and collects money from the ministry of health to
provide the system and it's training. The markup on jaws is miniscule
because we have to buy it from a middle man in BC who takes most of
the cut, and my company has to provide all the support. So when my
client accidentally upgrades to vista sp1 and tries to run the Jaws 8
they bought in October, it won't auth, and my company has to fork out
double our markup to provide a version upgrade. Plus they have to
send me out to troubleshoot and first find the problem and then
implement the solution. The company also has to send me out twice if
I do a reset of a system and the jaws video intersept decides to flip
off and crash the system out. It's a waste of time and money, and
it's coming at the cost of my business, not fs or the middle man.
We'd like to sell mac voice over, and we'd like to sell window-eyes,
and there's a lot we'd like to do, but we've got to sell what's on the
papers. The ignorent authorisers put the same equipment on every form
and the ignorent clients think that's the only equipment there is. So
they lose out, and we pay for the losses.
Best,
erik burggraaf
Certified Technician
Assistive Computing LTD Support and training
Sales department: 888-828-2445
Support and Training: 888-255-5194
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Website coming soon
On 20-Jun-08, at 6:18 PM, Esther wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:JAWS_%28screen_reader%29
