The Changing Landscape of the Assistive Technology Industry

I remember when I first began using what we call assistive technology 
back in the 1980′s. Computers were incredibly expensive and the screen 
readers which powered them were actually cheaper than those computers. 
Specialized devices made for blind consumers were made by companies 
which exclusively made such products and you had to pay a high premium 
for those products. As we fast forward through time to the year 2014, 
things have radically changed and I predict they will continue to do so. 
Companies in the a.t. industry are developing new and, to some, 
surprising business models in how they distribute their products and 
services. Some consumers are asking why this is happening.
In a nutshell, the landscape for computer access has radically changed 
and producers of screen readers simply can’t use the business model that 
worked for them in the 1980′s and 1990′s. For Windows users, we now have 
NVDA, which has become an extremely robust, reliable and stable screen 
reader. That’s not meant as an endorsement or as an advertisement but 
this has been my personal experience as I continue to use, teach and 
support consumers in the use of most of the major screen readers. It 
offers enough to satisfy most home users. In January of this year, GW 
Micro, now AI Squared, turned the industry on its head by offering 
Window-eyes to consumers who have Microsoft Office 2010 or later 
installed on their computers, which is a lot of consumers. With the 
economy being what it is, state rehab organizations are less likely to 
want to pay thousands of dollars for access software for a client and 
this will surely hurt manufacturers of some of the more expensive screen 
readers. Of course, there will always be visually impaired workers in a 
corporate environment who will require a screen reader with the power 
and configuration of JAWS and window-eyes but users at home or who are 
in school may not always need such a product to get by. I can anticipate 
the objections that NVDA doesn’t have the power and flexibility of a 
product like JAWS but for a product which was officially released in 
2009 it’s come a long way and additional support for Office is being 
added, not to mention that NVDA, like most other screen readers, is also 
scriptable. Let’s also not forget that blind consumers have 
understandably embraced apple with open arms, due to their commitment to 
universal accessibility in nearly all of their products. Basically, the 
economy is struggling and computers and other mainstream devices are 
becoming less expensive all of the time, making the prospect of paying a 
thousand dollars for an access package very unappealing and, to some, 
unacceptable.
Therefore, companies which sell products the way they did in the early 
1990′s are going to be clobbered by their competition and they must 
change the way they offer their products. This out of the box strategy 
could work, assuming it’s the correct strategy. Open source products 
like LibreOffice come to my mind where the product is free for anyone to 
download, install or distribute but consumers need to pay if they want 
support or if they require custom configurations. It’s an intriguing 
business model and it seems to work if you’ve got the right product. If 
you’re a state rehabilitation counselor and are responsible and 
accountable for the money that you spend on your consumers who are 
requesting software for corporate use, I’ll offer you two choices and 
I’d like to know which one you’d choose. First, you could purchase a 
screen reader for a thousand dollars, in addition to paying an hourly 
fee so that a programmer can write custom scripts to ensure that the 
screen reader is compatible with the company’s proprietary applications. 
After all, many companies aren’t just using Microsoft word and Microsoft 
Outlook as their main suite of programs. Your second choice is to see to 
it that the free NVDA screen reader or Window-eyes for users of 
Microsoft Office is installed on your consumer’s computer. Once your 
free screen reader is installed, you might still need to pay someone to 
write custom scripts but you’ve saved a thousand dollars in purchasing a 
screen reader.
GW Micro is a great example of a company in the a.t. industry trying to 
make money in this changing landscape by thinking out of the box. First, 
finding a convenient way to essentially give away an $895.00 screen 
reader was a pretty brilliant move on their part. For other companies, 
it would have been quite risky but I suspect it’s not as much of a risk 
to them, considering their partnership with Microsoft. Secondly, they 
actually do charge for several support plans for consumers who chose to 
get the “window-eyes for Users of Microsoft Office”. Also, they do offer 
phone-based training for a fee. This type of out of the box strategy is 
also being done by Fedora Outlier with a service they call the $6 
question where they will answer any support question you have for $6.00. 
That may not make them a ton of money but it’s a brilliant move and 
nobody else in this field is doing anything quite like that, at least to 
my knowledge. As I write this, it occurs to me that mainstream companies 
like Microsoft and Apple are getting the same message and are doing 
things we wouldn’t have expected even five years ago. Microsoft is 
essentially giving away new versions of Windows to consumers who are 
running Win8 or later. Apple is now offering packages like Pages and 
iBooks for free, at least for new users, and they even gave away the 
last OSX upgrade for free and I believe Yosemite will also be offered at 
no cost.
It’s also interesting to note that we’re seeing mainstream companies 
offer products and services which, years ago, would have only been 
available through specialized companies and this move, while a welcome 
one to consumers, is already affecting the assistive technology 
industry. Dynavox and Tobii have merged and the assistive technology 
built into the iPad is something which Dynavox couldn’t compete with. In 
fact, the Guardian Liberty Voice recently published a piece proclaiming 
that Apple is a leader in the assistive technology field. When I first 
saw the article, I nodded my head in agreement and didn’t think much 
about it. But then I thought about what the piece announced. One of the 
biggest leaders in the assistive technology industry is not one of the 
well-known or even well-respected companies in this field but instead 
it’s Apple, one of the biggest mainstream companies on the planet. Once 
I really started thinking about this it positively blew my mind and I 
could barely wrap my head around that fact. So, as I said companies, 
both mainstream as well as adaptive, have to change the way they do 
business if they want to continue to stay in business. Some of them are 
doing just that and those are the companies which will likely survive as 
the industry continues to transform into something totally different and 
truly wonderful.
-- 
Feel free to visit my new Web site http://www.DavidGoldfield.info Feel 
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http://www.twitter.com/davidgoldfield David Goldfield, Founder and Peer 
Coordinator Philadelphia Computer Users' Group for the Blind and 
Visually Impaired


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