Hi Doug: Have you been contacted about anti-trust considerations? Seems like with only the JAWS company ownership owning both Jaws and WindowEyes there are not any other major competitiors out there and thus this combination would be anti-competitive in nature. I don't know if that applies to the current combination but has it been bought up in discussions? Rick USA
-----Original Message----- From: Talk [mailto:talk-bounces+ofbgmail=mi.rr....@lists.window-eyes.com] On Behalf Of Doug Geoffray via Talk Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2016 12:19 PM To: Window-Eyes Discussion List <talk@lists.window-eyes.com> Subject: VFO acquisition of Ai Squared Hello everyone, I wanted to chime in here and give my personal thoughts to the bombshell released today regarding VFO (the parent company of Freedom Scientific and Optelec) acquiring Ai Squared. And by bombshell, I don't mean a bad thing, I just mean it is shocking and unexpected news. I know this may seem scary to many people. I know that we have a great number of extremely loyal customers who may be feeling betrayed. There are lots of legit concerns and questions that I'm sure come to everyone's minds. But honestly, nobody knows the answers at this point. We are just starting the discussions internally of how best to take all our new resources, talent, products, etc. and meld them together to give the best customer experience. For the next 6 months or so, it will be business as usual. After the 6 months, who knows at this point but I can guarantee the customers will benefit from the results. Nobody will be abandoned or taken advantage of, etc. I'm very impressed with John Blake (CEO of VFO). I truly believe John is in this for the customer. Personally, I'm extremely excited with the possibilities. Think about it, we now have all the best minds in this industry under one roof. Instead of us duplicating resources, we can combine them and inovate. Although Freedom has been our number one competitor since Dan and I started GW Micro in 1990, I've always had great respect for their engineers. Okay, I've had questions about their corporate leadership, a certain lawsuit comes to mind (smile), but that was a completely different leadership team. That was a different owner and a different CEO. Vector has an outstanding reputation. John Blake has shown great leadership and concern for the customer. Under this new leadership and available resources, I'm ready to take that and do whatever it takes to have the best possible solutions for our customers, for every low vision and blind person out there. People may be concerned about lack of competition causing innovation and quality to suffer. Nothing can be further from the truth. There is still plenty of competition out there, including free options but we have the determination and drive, starting at the corporate level all they way down to provide the best quality products, hands down. Yes, this will take some time to prove but I'm hoping that everyone out there will give us that opportunity. Again, I'm putting everything I have into this venture and I wouldn't do that if I didn't believe in it. Regards, Doug _______________________________________________ Any views or opinions presented in this email are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Ai Squared. For membership options, visit http://lists.window-eyes.com/options.cgi/talk-window-eyes.com/ofbgmail%40mi. rr.com. For subscription options, visit http://lists.window-eyes.com/listinfo.cgi/talk-window-eyes.com List archives can be found at http://lists.window-eyes.com/private.cgi/talk-window-eyes.com _______________________________________________ Any views or opinions presented in this email are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Ai Squared. For membership options, visit http://lists.window-eyes.com/options.cgi/talk-window-eyes.com/archive%40mail-archive.com. For subscription options, visit http://lists.window-eyes.com/listinfo.cgi/talk-window-eyes.com List archives can be found at http://lists.window-eyes.com/private.cgi/talk-window-eyes.com
