Dan retired? Marc left. Jeremy is going! - Who is next? (Smiles.) Sticking with a particular job for 8, 10, 12 or more years, is an achievement in itself. It tells its own story, about a company that is in line with its employees, and a job that meets the worker's desire for challenges and tasks. One benefit hereof, is the expertise you achieve through long-time experience, along with developing deep knowledge of the product you are working with, and in this industry, your customers. The assistive technology market is a pretty close one, so often you will be well-acquainted with your customers and users. At least to a degree where you will learn enough from their feedback, to see what might be good ways to expand and enhance your product.
Isn't that what we all have enjoyed about the old GWMicro, their stability. And that we all have been able to reach the staff members - either face-to-face, via phone, or email and the mailinglists. Good and close contact with your market will often prove useful, when you want a taylored product. And though we sometimes might feel we are not being heard, I am sure most of us over the years, have found the requests for new functionality in our screen reader, has met some of our personal preferences. It is sad to see the merge, and what seems to be its effect. Now, after numerous of years in service, it is nothing unusual in people leaving, and going for new challenges or even retiring. What really is concerning, from what it seems at this state, is that apparently noone new is coming in to take over the place of those leaving. In just about a month's time, we have seen two go. And who is actually left of the "former" staff? Of those who really knows the depths of Window-Eyes? To keep a staff that really knows the screen reader and its build, will be essential for further development and good customer service. Sure, the staff can leave the full code, all notes and all other material for the new VFO staff. But that does not always tell all the thoughts and ideas behind why things are done the way they are. Likely new staff, may have a hard time in "just jumping in", and take over things. So let's hope that only happens, after thorough exchanging of knowledge and thoughts between former and new staff. To what extent the sdcreen reader we all are using will continue, or if it will be swallowed by Jaws - or even a brand new, combined product - I am not going to speculate. Likely only the people on top will know what they want to do about it all, and they are unlike to let anyone know until the last minute. Still, there are a few things that they might want to keep in mind. For one thing, Window-Eyes have had the beneficial "free Office" offer, in cooperation with Microsoft. Let's just keep in mind, that this might be stopped anyway, if Microsoft so desire, toatally sidetracked of what any company (merged or not) had hoped for. The other great feature of Win-Eyes, is the scripting capacity. Many of you may not even pay attention to the fact in your daily activities, but I am ready to say that just about all of you would be quick to react, if you for one day turned off all apps (or scripts) in your screen reader. So many features will be gone, and you will feel like stepping close to a decade back in productivity. May of course be a great nostalgic way of memorizing what it was like in the old days, to be blind computer worker. If the idea is to phase out Win-Eyes, the new Jaws (or whatever name it will take), will have to offer us the same great app-building feature. Sure, Jaws - as it already stands - has its scripting capability. But that is too complicated, and will need special expertise to work with, and could easily lead to a load of well-working and appreciated functionalities to be gone. The biggest issue about one of the more established screen readers being in hard weather, though, might be the loss of choice. OK, in many cases - when either school, employer or authorities will have to pay - the user may not have too much of a choice. Still, the fact that there has been different products on the market, has given the private user a certain amount of choice. And if an employer has been into a matter of inaccessible issues, and have been shown there would be a solution in changing the screen reader, he might be convinced to switch. The day we would loose one of the choices, it will be limiting our chances to get a taylored computer-day, as blind users. Even another benefit of having several screen readers, is the fact that they will push each other in development. It is enough to see what happens in other markets. Take for instance the Air-Bag of your car. Someone invented it, and introduced it into their cars. Other car manufactures saw the benefit of meeting a market request from their customers, and install it in their cars as well. Now aday, in many countries it is even a requirement for your car to be aproved on the road, that it has this piece of equipment installed. Same could be said about many other things in our daily life. Had there only been one or two manufacturers on the market, they could simply just sit down and claim no such equipment would be technically possible, and leave the accident statistics to raise. Having more than one actor on the scene sometimes will prove beneficial for development, and can be done without any kind of competing simply just by learning from each other, and sometimes even cooperating. Or, what do you think about the day when Philips and Sony cooperated to kicked out the CD-player on the market? Just for one example. With an ever-decreasing staff in the former GWMicro, it is natural that the market asks the question: "What is actually going on?" But do we have any information as to whether this decline of staff also takes place in the old FS-line? Is it all over the company they are slimming down? I for one, will be sad to see a screen reader that I have come to rely on, leave the market; should such be the final outcome. Yet, sometimes changes prove beneficial - though hard to take in the first place. Hope would be they keep the Win-Eyes running - in some form - up till the point when the computers that we all know will no longer be the case of the day. Who knows how long Windows itself even will be in business. Now aday everyone wants smartphones, or tablets. And tomorrow???? - Why, who knows? Sure, those of us who are using a paid-for version of WE, will still be able to use it - even if it should be discontinued from future development and support. And should the mailinglists be turned down, someone will put up a privately administered list, and we will all go there. But the bad day will be for those who are on payment-plans, or even the ones who use the free-version. Yet, it would be useless to spiculate with the information currently available, what will happen to these groups. Hopefully the new company will have something in store for them. David On 10/14/2016 10:26 PM, Loy via Talk wrote: > No one really knows. Doug said back in June no changes at least for the next > six months, so maybe they will give us some news soon so we all can stop > speculating. I don't have a public job so I will not buy JAWS, I can get > along with Window Eyes for a while even if they discontinue it. Then I'll use > NVDA. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: darren harris via Talk > To: 'Samuel Wilkins' ; 'Window-Eyes Discussion List' > Sent: Friday, October 14, 2016 4:17 PM > Subject: is this definite? was RE: The Phasing Out of Window-Eyes > > > Hi all, > > Is this actual policy or are people just panicking? Is wineyes going to be > fazed out? > > -----Original Message----- > From: Talk > [mailto:talk-bounces+darren_g_harris=btinternet....@lists.window-eyes.com] > On Behalf Of Samuel Wilkins via Talk > Sent: 14 October 2016 20:28 > To: bj colt via Talk > Subject: The Phasing Out of Window-Eyes > > Hello John, > > I have been drafting a letter to VFO because, as you know, there is > speculation that Window-Eyes is going to be phased out. If it is, I am > not switching to Jaws, because I won't be able to afford it, amongst > other reasons. However, in my letter, I have pointed out that if > Window-Eyes goes, it provides a significant problem for blind people > wanting to get into work, as not everyone has an access to work fund. > Moreover, one of the few ways we can work, especially for younger > people, is volunteering, and there, we may be in a crisis, as IT > technicians are paranoid about NVDA, since it is open source, and they > think it could contain a virus or compromise security in another way. > We would be in limbo, as they won't want NVDA, and they won't pay for > Jaws, as Access to Work won't pay for equipment for unpaid work, so you > would have to buy a license for every computer you use out of your own > pocket. What do you think? Also, I have heard that they are developing > both Magic and ZoomText. How come they are doing that, but phasing out > Window-Eyes? To me, this is a case of double standards. > > > -- > Regards, > > Samuel Wilkins > > _______________________________________________ > 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/darren_g_harri > s%40btinternet.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/loyrg2845%40gmail.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/trailerdavid%40hotmail.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
