Erik, Even with the note i wrote previously before seeing yours, I believe you make some good theoretical points here. What I do not think you addressed in your note is the differences between the Apple and Microsoft environments. Because something may work in one market does not mean it will work well in the other. The goal of a universal access computer out of the box is a worthy one and I don't know how anyone could disagree with that. Apple seems to be doing a good job of making it happen. From what I know of the migration of Windows, and I am not an insider, I can see that there could come a time when it might take a less robust screen reader to do the job within Windows which could take fewer resources to support. This could make a cheaper screen reader possible or make it something Microsoft could support, but as one who is completely dependent upon good screen reader support to do my job, I'd want to know a lot about what they would propose before feeling comfortable with it. While I might not have used the word "disservice," I feel very much that having a full-featured screen reader included with Windows at this point would not necessarily be in our interest. We do need to address the needs of an aging blind population and I don't have all of the answers, but I think that we need to be sure that in an effort to get cheaper accessibility we also don't end up with less accessibility. I am not saying Apple necessarily provides less accessibility, only that we need to keep it in mind as we look at what happens with Windows.My opinions, though, are subject to watching what Apple does over the next few years and also how Windows evolves. Things could change. However, I would not be happy with GW Micro if they did not have a business plan that reaches into the future. Even if we speculate about possible changes, they need to plan on being around to maintain what they are doing today, so their responses to these questions should be expected.
Best regards, Steve Jacobson On Thu, 2 Sep 2010 12:43:49 -0400, erik burggraaf wrote: >> Guys, I tried to keep the below as polite and forthright as possible, but it >> degenerates in places and reading and rereading, I don't really see the benefit of removing some of the language that might be considered offensive or abridging my comments. I really feel this needs to be said, not for the purpose of offending, but for the purpose of taking what I feel is the right stance. >> >> Hi Mark, this is bad... Very very bad. There are glaring inaccuracies in >> this release. I sincerely hope you did not send it to any public forums other than gw micro customer base. I've quoted what I want to draw your attention to in my comments, but left the entire article below for people to read in it's entirety. >> >> Article 6: You wrote, >> "what incentive would Apple have to make their screen reader work with >> Microsoft Office and what incentive would Microsoft have to make their screen reader work with iTunes?" >> This Demonstrates a lack of understanding on how the other side works. >> Windows is not mac OS, and mac OS is not windows. On the mac side, you have a screen reader, but you also have a fully accessible operating system. The libraries and API's used to build programs generate accessible programs, which are then read and interpreted by an accessible operating system, which then sends information to voiceover... or a talk box... or a TTY machine... Or whatever. For now, Microsoft has chosen to make office for mac inaccessible at great pains to themselves. Apple and adobe have a love hate relationship, and so adobe products on the mac are hit and miss for accessibility users and non alike. As the system develops though, It will eventually become impossible to build a program on the mac platform that is inaccessible to apples universal access design. As such, all software written for macs will eventually be accessible, whether you are blind, deaf, dyslexic, paraplegic, or have any other disability. We may have to chase every version of ITunes on the windows side, but eventually office for mac will be accessible whether ms likes it or not, unless they simply choose to scrap office for mac development before things get to that stage. We still have a ways to go. >>> >> Article Seven: you wrote, >> "In addition, GW Micro is the only screen reader manufacturer to host and >> moderate an email discussion list. This list is a great resource that allows our customers to discuss technical issues and questions with GW Micros technical support team as well others in the Window-Eyes community." >> This is incorrect. NVDA developers run their own user support group exactly >> like GW Micro's. The lead developer of the Espeak software was also a regular contributor when I was there, and There should be a brlty developer on there by now. Apples accessibility team also monitors the macvisionaries user group. While they don't usually participate, hundreds of feature requests that get bandied about the group are implemented with every new release. I know for a fact that they are watching that group because they have posted publicly there on occasion, and the fact that they are usually quiet doesn't mean they are ignoring their customer base. I believe duxbury systems moderates it's own groups, and I'm sure there are others. >> >> Article 9: This made me furious when I read it because it demonstrates an >> appalling amount of sheer ignorance. The statements are categorically false, and should be retracted immediately before they generate well deserved ill feelings against the company you represent. I'd like to say, I have been an apple user for 2 and a half years. before that I was a very happy window-eyes user, and though I seldom actually use the product these days, I still keep up my sma, and my switch to apple was entirely driven by dissatisfaction with windows, and in no way reflects any dissatisfaction with window-eyes or GWMicro. I still continue to enjoy supporting and training on window-eyes and I'm confident recommending it to clients. I'm still pretty mad though. You wrote: >>> "GW Micro believes that having a free screen reader as part of the >>> operating system does a disservice to Blind computer users." >>> >> That's an extremely shaky position to be in, and I'll topple you in a >> second. For now, I want to say that if it wasn't for governemnt funding, I wouldn't have window-eyes. I bought it well before the days of the payment plan. Last Christmas, I bought a brand new operating system from apple including a fully functional screen reader for $35 Canadian. A new window-eyes upgrade and a copy of win7 would have cost me just over $300 Canadian, $195 for the upgrade from WE6 to 7, and $120 for a copy of win7 home premium. not that I think the window-eyes upgrade was not good value for money, but if one doesn't have $300 to spend, then they just don't have. it. If Ontario's rather dubious funding system were to vanish tomorrow, the number of blind people using mac here would go up 500 times in the next year. >>> "The relatively small size of the screen reader market does not allow >>> Microsoft or Apple to invest the amount of resources that accessibility truly deserves." >>> >> This is so non-visionary, it would be hilarious if it wasn't so inflammatory >> . Accessibility is not about blind people. We do this all the damn time and it's the most selfish stupid thing I've ever heard. I'm saddened to hear it spewing out of my screen reader from a company I respect. OK, you serve blind people, and blind people are a small market, especially blind people who work or go to school or whatever. I mean, most people who are blind have macular degeneration which sets in between the ages of 60 and 70. They still want to use computers,, but their needs are not extravagant. In a world where 1 per sent of the total population is blind, I'm the freak of nature who was just born with RP. The odds against are astronomically high. So, whenever this subject comes up, it always saddens me to hear people natter about how small the blind community is and all the trials and tribulations involved in providing accessibility. Hello world, is anybody listening? I'm going to say something really profound here. You won't want to miss this. The world, does not, revolve, around, blind people. There are, other people, who need, accessibility, besides, you john blind person. There are deaf people out there. Milionds of normal looking people on the street that you walk by every day have learning disabilities. There are people with musculature and fine motor problems., people who don't have all of their limbs, or maybe they only have two fingers on one hand. The number of disabilities that inhibit access and the number of potential users that benefit from a universally accessible design is limitless. It's not about building a screen reader so that apple can sell more computers to blind people, although they are doing a phenomenal job of that. It's about building a computer that can be used by anyone, regardless of their disability. When you look at it that way, the economics make more sense. GW micro builds stuff for blind people, and that's great. They do a good job of building stuff for blind people. But apple is building stuff for everyone, regardless of disability, and they are doing a good job at it. >> >>> "Without a major change in Microsoft or Apples infrastructure, they would >>> be ill-prepared to develop a strong and evolving screen reader as well as provide the type of support that is often required by screen reader users." >>> >> Wrong again. Or at least, if a change was needed, it happened in apple, and >> the signs started showing 5 or 6 years ago. That means the actual change you speak of probably took place many years before that. Window-eyes is a very good product. Certainly better than it's closest windows counterpart, but my friend, voiceover is getting to be at least as good as window-eyes, and if the position of GWMicro is truly that apple will never build a full featured competitive screen reader then you had better get your head out of your collective asses or the wave is going to sweep this company away. Voiceover offers access to the web which is at least as robust as window-eyes or it's competitor except for adobe flash which is mostly adobe's fault. Voiceover offers read-write braille support via usb and bluetooth for at least 25 braille displays. Voiceover has a non-proprietary full featured scripting model using apple script which is a part of mac OS. Voiceover even has truly useful features that window-eyes does not yet have. For example, window-eyes does not provide full access or as far as I know, any access at all to the multi-touch trackpad on windows PC's. You can not use jesters in window-eyes to control your pc, a feature which many blind mac users have come to rely on once past the learning curve. >> As far as the support goes, I can take my computer into any apple store or >> apple reseller and they will sit down in front of me and fix my problem. If they don't know what the solution is, they will look it up. There are a lot of people supporting apple. Apple hires individuals based on a huge array of factors, and they generally manage to finddgood people. It is possible to have a bad tech support experience with apple, but it's also possible to have the same with GW, or in deed any company. Support is a hard job. When things aren't going your way it can be extremely stressful for both the support person and the one being supported. It's important to be careful about how you criticize some one else's support or decry your own. Although I really think GW has very good support overall, I would hesitate to pick out any one company and say, "that one has the best support". Still, I get face to face, one on one attention for my problems and questions from apple. I can have training from the apple store if I want, and for less than what GW would charge. I can't even get GW's training courses here, much as I'd love to have them. In order to bring the courses here, I have to find 5 to 10 people who want the course and have the money to pay for it, find a venue to host it, and so on. I've read the review of window-eyes training courses. It made me drool, but I don't think it's accurate at all to say that a mainstream provider can't give blind customers the attention they need. >>> "Without competition from screen reader manufacturers like GW Micro there >>> will be no incentive for Apple or Microsoft to include a feature-rich and powerful screen reader into their operating system." >>> >> Well I think we've put pay to the fully functioning nonsense. Competition >> isn't bad. I'm for sure grateful I had a choice between jaws and window-eyes back in the day. It's saved me a lot of frustration. I'm for sure grateful I had a choice between mac and windows, cause even though I work a job, I'm not exactly the most wealthy guy in the world, and I have to watch it. I'm glad the vinux project is doing so well, and I love looking forward to the new release of NVDA every year. It would be really tough for any one to come in and compete with apple though. How do you beat some one in the market when they offer a universally accessible operating system? I guess there is vinux, but it's a tough sell. Now you are talking around in circles, because first you say that there's no way a mainstream company can build and support a full functioning screen reader, and Then you say that competition from companies like GW Micro is driving microsoft and apple accessibility.. This is ridiculous. You can not have it both ways. In fact, my info is that full accessibility was tried by MS back around the turn of the century, and it got squashed by the NFB, who incidentally, did a huge hack job on Voiceover when Leopard came out and was forced to print retractions, after users demonstrated numerous statements made by the organization to be completely false. Wherefore, no one was interested in mac OS 10 until apple made it interesting, and now it's competitive after many years of work and revision. Where were GWMicro and Freedom Scientific back in OS10.1? Serving the 90% windows community and being paid rather well for doing so, while apple took the initiative and built something. So both of these statements trip over eachother and fall flat on their faces. >>> >>> GWMicro has so many good things to offer blind users, and I'm sorry that no >>> one else showed up for the show down; However, If you publish something like this to a wider community, then what you have to offer is going to get lost amid all the inaccurate, contradictory and inflammatory statements about other companies and the blind community. This is not the way, and I very much hope you will reconsider. >>> >>> >> Regards, >> >> Erik Burggraaf >> Check out my first ever podcast tutorial, Learn braille using the braille >> box. >> Visit http://www.erik-burggraaf.com and click podcasts to read more and >> subscribe. >> >> On 2010-09-01, at 2:28 PM, [email protected] wrote: >> >>> >>> Earlier this summer, the Information Access Committee invited GW Micro, >>> Freedom Scientific, Serotek, NVDA and Apple to participate in the Future of Screen Readers discussion panel at the 2010 ACB convention in Phoenix Arizona. When the time came for the discussion panel, GW Micro was the only screen reader manufacturer that showed up to participate. In fairness, Serotek and NVDA attempted to participate via Skype but were unable to do so because of Internet connectivity issues in the hotel conference area. As for the others, Freedom Scientific declined to participate and Apple did not even acknoweldge the invitation sent by the Information Access Committee. GW Micro would like to take this opportunity to publicly respond to the 10 questions asked of each participant and you can find the ten discussion panel questions along with our responses below: >>> >If you reply to this message it will be delivered to the original sender only. >If your reply would benefit others on the list and your message is related to GW Micro, then please consider sending your message to [email protected] so the entire list will receive it. >GW-Info messages are archived at http://www.gwmicro.com/gwinfo. You can manage >your list subscription at http://www.gwmicro.com/listserv. If you reply to this message it will be delivered to the original sender only. If your reply would benefit others on the list and your message is related to GW Micro, then please consider sending your message to [email protected] so the entire list will receive it. GW-Info messages are archived at http://www.gwmicro.com/gwinfo. You can manage your list subscription at http://www.gwmicro.com/listserv.
