Seems similar to the agreements between Code Factory and the cellular service providers to offer Mobile Accessibility for free to visually impaired customers. I think that Apple started the ball rolling in this arena, and this paradigm shift might also be helped along by legislation passed over the last few years.
Andy -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Gene Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2014 7:23 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [EXTERNAL] [BlindTech] Re: FW: [EXTERNAL] GW Micro Announces Global Window-Eyes Initiative for users of Microsoft Office Mike and all those are interesting observations. Here are more possibilities and another perspective from me. This may not be related to passing G W Micro on to the next generation, or it may be partly related to that. It may be mainly or largely a response to the competition from NVDA. How do you compete with a product that is free? You try to reduce the cost of your product, provide features and functions the free product doesn't provide, or both. So NVDA may be causing meaningful improvement and innovation in the economic model used by screen-reader developers. it may also be causing increased pressure to improve for profit screen-readers as well. I contend that, if the NVDA developers are willing to sacrifice their economic futures and present as well, for developing a free screen-reader, that's their choice and that's fine as a voluntary commitment. But I consider it fundamentally unjust and unreasonable that they should have to make that choice to provide a quality product that gives good access to Windows. A means should long ago have been found to do this while justly compensating screen-reader developers. This G W Micro/Microsoft initiative may be an important step in that direction. Also, consider that NVDA is not nearly as secure in its future as a for profit screen-reader may be. All it takes is for the NVDA main developers to decide to stop development to pursue financial security or for them to become unable to continue, for health reasons, for example, and that would be a very serious threat to NVDA's future. such voluntary efforts as those of the NVDA developers are commendable and such economic sacrifice is commendable but a just free market solution is to be greatly preferred. Perhaps we are seeing something more along those lines evolving. Gene ----- Original Message ----- From: Mike Pietruk Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2014 3:18 AM To: [email protected] > John > ' > You ask the question I've been thinking about. Here's how I see it. > > Dan W and Doug G, founders of GW Micro, are at the stage of their > careers where they have to consider their own and family futures. > Either the business gets passed down to the next generation, sold, or > merged into another business. > Either GW Micro is going to receive some sort of licensing fee for > each download of WE, GW Micro becomes paid consultants for MSFT, or > Dan and Doug (and perhaps other key GW Micro employees) become part of > MSFT either now or at some point in the not too distant future. > > What caught my attention is that GW Micro has discontinued sales of > the SMA's for future upgrades. That leaves open the issue of how > non-office users will upgrade in the future -- probably by having to > purchase Office licenses in the future. > That probably isn't much of a practical issue unless one happens to > use WE on a number of pcs. > > This sounds like a win-win agreement for GW Micro, MSFT and WE users. > Most certainly, MSFT will want to see MSFT software work nicely with WE. > > > > Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching." > C.S. Lewis > > You are receiving this message, because you subscribed to the BlindTech discussion list. To send a message to the list, [email protected] If you wish to unsubscribe, edit options, ETC, please visit: http://www.freelists.org/list/blindtech If you have a question, or need to get ahold of the admins, please e-mail: [email protected] 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.
