Hi Jamal,

There are a lot of disabled in this world who can not pay the price of a
professional accessibility feature. I got a lot of messages from people from
Eastern Europe, Africa, Canada and also from the USA who asked if I could do
something for them, because they could not pay the price.
Maybe there are too much manufacturers of accessibility features in this
world. All small companies that do not work together. All with nearly the
same prices. Synthavoice removed their screen magnifiers PANORAMA and
POWERAMA windows bridge from the market, because it doesn't support Windows
95. Why did they not the same as Dolphin Computer Access to make freeware of
it. Dolphin Computer Access made freeware of there screen magnifier Lunar
for Windows 3.1. and I heard that some people also use it on Windows 95. It
has less functionality than Lunar for Windows 95 or ZoomText and why should
they make freeware of it if they were afraid they sell less screen
magnifiers? Lunar lite is much better than what Microsoft offers in Windows
98. If I should work with the Windows 98 magnifier of Microsoft I had to
find a new job, because I can not work with it. But it is nice I can use it
on a strange computer for a couple of minutes. Microsoft called this
magnifier a low-end feature and it is not more than that.

At this moment there are hundreds of speech programs on the market. Fpr $20
or less you can buy a program that reads all your texts. Microsoft is doing
nothing else than adding such functionality to their operating system.
For some people these speech or these simple screen magnifiers may be enough
to access Windows. They do not longer have to pay $1000 or more to access
Windows. They only have to buy Windows itself.
This may effect the developers of professional accessibility features, but
if they drop there prices I think the most strong companies have good
chances in the market.
But I agree with you that governments may not get the impression that
Windows is accessible with those low-end built-in feature in Windows. And as
I stated before in the case of speech. I think it has nothing to do with
accessibility but with new trends in the commercial market for using more
speech.

Regards Peter Verhoeven
Internet : http://www.plex.nl/~pverhoe (The Screen Magnifiers Homepage)

>Peter,
>At the recent Microsoft accessibility summit in Redmond, there appeared
>to be consensus among blind advocates that some speech capabilities
>could be a helpful part of the Windows operating system, as long as they
>were not called a "screen reader" or "screen magnifier," which would be
>misleading to government procurement officials, employers, and
>nontechnical users who may assume they are true accessibility solutions.
> Some representatives of Zoomtext, by the way, expressed their strong concern
>to me about this, fearing that sales for their screen magnifier product
>would plummet and drive them out of business.  Unfortunately, to my
>knowledge, Microsoft still plans to include a limited
>"screen magnifier" in Windows 98 and both a "screen magnifier" and
>screen reader" in NT 5.0.  Unless and until Microsoft commits to
>delivering state of the art accessibility aids, however, it seems best
>that it focus its resources on complementing rather than overlapping,
>and thereby undermining, third party developers.
>
>Regards,
>Jamal
>
>On 1998-03-10 [log in to unmask] said:
>   >Hi,
>   >This is not the first article I post in this listing about
>   >accessibility and I'm fan of Microsoft Active accessibility concept.
>   >But what some people say about Microsoft and speech I can not agree.
>   >Some of you are afraid that the small companies that produce
>   >accessibility features like speech recognition and speech output
>   >are pushed from the market if Microsoft include speech in Windows.
>   >I'm afraid Microsoft don't push them from the market. Bill Gates
>   >said in his speech at the Microsoft Accessibility day that
>   >Microsoft do a lot of research on speech recognition and speech
>   >output. I don't know what this research has to do with
>   >accessibility? Speech input and speech output has more to do with
>   >future developements. I'm happy my TV produces speech and have not
>   >to buy an expensive feature to get speech out of my TV. In some
>   >years people use Internet in their car and it is impossible to
>   >drive a car with twho hands on the keyboard, so speech recognition
>   >es required. A car driver can not look at the road and on a monitor
>   >at the same time, so speech output is required. Microsoft is not
>   >researching for the disabled but for the commercial market! That
>   >some of us can do their favor with this, is welcome! But the speech
>   >support will never be so advanced as offered by the professional
>   >accessibility features. If Microsoft want to include speech output,
>   >speech recognition and screen magnification standard in Windows for
>   >the disabled, please let them do it so advanced that we never think
>   >about buying a professional accessibility feature, that we can
>   >access all software and every information Microsoft or not. Peter
>   >Verhoeven Internet : http://www.plex.nl/~pverhoe (The Screen
>   >Magnifiers Homepage)
>
>Net-Tamer V 1.09.2  - Registered
>