My view on the iE4 matter may be summarized in the following points:

(1) The Microsoft accessibility team made a public relations blunder by
not alerting the disability community that Active Accessibility had not
made the 4.0 release of Internet Explorer.  This alert should have
been accompanied by an assurance that this was only a temporary setback,
with a committment for when Active Accessibility would be included within
this and other Microsoft applications.

(2) We can probably assume that the Microsoft accessibility team has
learned from this PR blunder and that it is unlikely to recur again.  We
should give them the benefit of the doubt that MSAA was not included in
IE 4.0, not because of them, but despite their efforts.  In other words,
while we may have legitimately blamed the accessibility team for not
alerting and reassuring us, we should put the blame on the release of IE
without MSAA on senior managers at Microsoft.

(3) Senior management at Microsoft should be sent a message from
consumers that Microsoft should match deeds with words when it comes to
accessibility to people with disabilities.  It is fine and proper for
companies to tout accessibility in their product marketing and corporate
image promotion, but this must be backed by substance.

(4) Three forms of influence are needed upon senior management at
Microsoft:  personal stories of the impact of IE4 inaccessibility, media
stories that cause Microsoft to publicly defend its accessibility
committment, and economic pressure from government and private
organizations with significant purchasing power who communicate the
importance of accessibility within their procurement criteria.

(5) We should try to leverage Microsoft's clear mistakes with IE 4.0
into a commitment to full accessibility of Windows 98 upon release,
including MSAA in all parts of the software that  screen readers
and other adaptive tools would otherwise have difficulty with.  We
should call for the release of Windows 98 to be delayed if necessary
until this is done.

Regards,
Jamal

Net-Tamer V 1.09.2  - Registered