To be utterly honest, I have expected something like this ever since NVDA became the most popularly used screen-reader on the planet not only in private environments but also in commercial and educational scenarios.
I personally now work in an educational environment, offering I.T support and consultancy services, liaising between the academy where I work and parents of its pupils who are, effectively, my clients. I also support the staff in their day-to-day technology requirements. NVDA is slowly but surely causing institutions such as the Sunnyside Academy where I work to phase out site licenses for Jaws, in favour of the free and just as reliable NVDA. GW Micro is, therefore, being pushed into a very low-profile third place in people’s options for Windows. Therefore, GW Micro is probably doing what they have done in order to cut their losses and team up with Microsoft. Nobody can really convince me that Window-Eyes is a justifiable expenditure as a stand-alone solution any longer. Indeed, when I stop and think about it, Window-Eyes is probably my fifth, not my third option for those in education. In first place is NVDA, no doubt about that. It is fast, responsive, compatible with the latest in 32-boot and 64-bit speech synthesis technologies, it works well with all of Microsoft’s applications. And it is, of course, free of charge. Donations are the preferred method and I think that the charity who develop NVDA should take the plaudits. They have revolutionised Windows accessibility. Next, is the former wold leader, Jaws. I have a licence for Jaws 15 so that I can work on it with those people who still need to use it. I have to say that Jaws is also very very fast and responsive. It requires some configuration and its activation ILM is a pain. But once working there’s no doubt that it does work well. In third place, we have System Access To Go. Another light-weight solution which, although basic in functionality, does what it does very well indeed. Next, Dolphin SuperNova. Supernova is the all-in-one solution for those who are blind and also those with low vision. With separate or scaleable licensing, Supernova offers the basic basic functionality of Windows plus very good responsiveness across Microsoft’s application range. And finally, Window-Eyes. The new regarding GW Micro does not surprise me in the least. In fact, to be honest, I’ve been wondering for a while which company would be first to jump through the Microsoft hoop, Freedom Scientific or GW Micro. I think it won’t be long before GW Micro turns its software solution totally over to Microsoft and have it ported into the next major release of both Office and Windows itself. GW Micro has been branching out for quite some time into other areas and I can see this continuing, as they off-load Window-Eyes to Microsoft. Of course, there’s one other thing I should mention at this point. VoiceOver! That is what set the wheels of change in the Windows market place really rolling, in my opinion. But that’s for another place at another time. All I can say in summary is, I told you so. I’ve anticipated something like this for a while and I have been telling those for whom I work that this would happen, or something similar at any rate. Kind regards <--- Gordon Smith ---> <[email protected]> Information Technology Accessibility Consultant; Providing Help & Support To Young People LivingWith Visual Impairment, plus Braille Transcription services. On 15 Jan 2014, at 01:24, Sarah k Alawami <[email protected]> wrote: Yes this is true. Interestingly GwMicro are also doing away with SMA's as well. I'm kind of scared that accessibility is going in to the main stream as what if in theory microsoft buys window eyes? What will happen then? Maybe it will be good, maybe it will be not so good. We'll see. Here is ======================================= To post to this group, please send your message to: [email protected] The Windows-Access E-Mail forum is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free To modify your subscription options, please visit your personalise subscriber options page, located at http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/windows-access You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Windows-Access forum at either of the following websites: http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/windows-access/index.html Or: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> you may also subscribe to this list via RSS. The feed is at: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> --------------------------------------- [email protected]
