Remember them, I still have some.
Brian

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----- Original Message ----- From: "Kevin Cussick via Groups.Io" <the.big.white.shepherd@...>
To: <nvda@nvda.groups.io>
Sent: Friday, October 06, 2017 9:27 PM
Subject: Re: [nvda] WebAim Screen Reader User Survey #7: Getting The Word Out About NVDA

I used window's bridge ran on windows95 but I didn't use the pc much so can not really say if it was fantastic or not didn't really get back in until window's2000 anyway it did egsist but as said not really a combatant user at that time so can't say much about it.   it came on some floppy disks remember them? anyway thanks for reading.

On 06/10/2017 00:08, Randy Barnett wrote:

I have been using Jaws since 95 and i have never even heard of windows bridge. If it was so good why is that? theirs only 2 windows screen reading programs today Jaws and NVDA. I don't count obscure programs no one has ever heard of...
Well, Narrator but that is not a full featured program yet.

On 10/5/2017 3:44 PM, Travis Siegel wrote:

The only statement in this thread I have to take exception to is the statement that jaws was providing access before anyone else. This statement is completely false.

The very first screen reader ever for windows was windowbridge. Windowbridge had a lot of firsts when it comes to screen reader functionality, including some things that still don't exist in any screen reader available today, such as mouse navigation via locking vertical or horizontal movement so you could find things on the screen easier.

It also was the first screen reader to use the caps lock key as a modifier, (something each and every screen reader has copied since), and it had a lot of other firsts. Just because a program is the most popular doesn't make it either the best, or the most advanced, or even the one with the most features. Jaws is popular yes, but a lot of that popularity is due to the fact that state agencies and other government organizations use it and their clients use it, it isn't the mostpopular because it outstrips every other screen reader in the market with it's feature set, capabilities and it's usability. Folks really should keep that in mind when deiscussing screen readers. There's a reason there are multiple (and always have been) multiple screen readers. Everyone knows, there is no such thing as one size fits all when it comes to screen readers, no program can be everything to everyone, and the screen reader market is no exception. Each screen reader has it's pros and it's cons, and what eacyh user uses should be up to that user, only that usually isn't the case. When I worked for a rather large computer company as a programmer and a tech support person, I did not get to choose what screen reader I wanted to use, I was told that I was going to use jaws, and that I was going to like it, because that's the only option I had. As it turns out, the copy of jaws I got was an illegal install that wasn't registered to me, and I had to spend my own money to purchase a program I didn't want, just so I wouldn't be liable if some sort of audit came through. Of course, said audit never did come through, but the point is, you never know what can/will happen, and if you aren't prepared, you could get in a lot of trouble, even for things you didn't do. Had I had my choice of screen reader, it would have been window-eyes, but I wasn't asked, and I wasn't even consulted about the question.  Shortly afterwords, my case was closed by the visual services department, and I never got a single piece of help from them, even though it's their job to provide assistance with this very thing.

This message has strayed way off topic, and even into topics I didn't intend to bring up, but it all goes together, so there it is, make of it what you like.

The point though, is that whatever the screen reader is, it really should be up to the user to choose what they want to use. If they don't know, then showing them the options and allowing them to choose would be nice, but often times, that isn't what ahppens, and because of that, there is a false impression created that the program of choice (or the device of choice for that matter) is the best/first/what have you, when it could very just as easily be the bottom of the barrel, but nobody knows, because there is no option given.


On 10/4/2017 8:50 AM, erik burggraaf wrote:

Hi Randy,

On October 3, 2017 11:54:34 PM "Randy Barnett" <randy@...> wrote:

Jaws has gone down in price over the years.


I'll give you this. Looking at the freedom scientific website, I can see that the home edition stands at $900, and the professional stands at $1100. These prices are about 2 or 3 hundred dollars cheeper than when I last had ocasion to keep track some four years ago. I guess that's about a 20% nock off. If it doesn't seem like much, that's because 9 c's is far out of reach of the home user. IE, government is still the primary target market for this product and I believe all my former arguments to retain validity.
FS has been fairly competative on hardware pricing I will give them that. I don't like most of their hardware, but I know many people who do and the price points make it attractive to both those who use it and those who pay. Of course, people who use fs hardware naturally tend to gravitate to fs software and vice versa. This is certainly not always the case, but I see it often.

Even more if you figure in
inflation. It has not gone up at all. Nor is it likely too.

No, I don't buy the inflation bit either, not considering the take home of the top brass at VFO. The pricing includes all overhead including reasonable inflation, so no. Plus, we're still debunking the research and development argument. Each release of jaws does not require the scratch construction of a new speech synthesizer, video display chain driver, and accessibility api among other core functions. Programmers are talented people who diserve to be paid accordingly, but the scale of the research required to maintain jaws now is nowhere near on the scale it would have been in the late 90's when there were no such things as accessibility standards.

Also, Gene touched on it and others may have too. They're not just selling jaws. They're selling training at a premium. I've seen quotes for scripting ranging from $150 per work hour, to $150 per code line. I'm working on a human rights employment case right now and just to get an audit of what needs to be fixed in this one company from an accessibility consultant is going to cost $15000.  Just to find out what's wrong. Now, VFO owns one of the supposed leading consulting firms in this area, which means they can test with only jaws, and tout scripting at a premium. Also, you notice, they don't tell you how much it costs for remote access anymore? The ominous, "call for pricing". Let's not waste any clean-x on VFO's proffit margin shall we.

I am not a


big fan of VFO and criticize it often but they are like any other
specialized software. Have you ever price CAD, Audio design, CNC
mapping and other similar software? they far exceed the cost of Jaws.

Nop, Gene tried this one too, and I didn't have the time to address it but lets just say... No. If I buy jaws, it's money spent playing catch up. There is no doubt the benefits of hiring blind employees.  It's the law, and I need to comply. There are lots of perripheral benefits, but no direct cost recovery. I mearly pay to supplement what I already have. IE, I have a great employee and an inaccessible workplace and jaws glues the two together. But I might be able to find another great employee who doesn't need jaws, and unless I'm planning to start a sideline in some area of accessibility work, I'm not seeing a direct return on my jaws or ansilary services like scripting.

The argument holds less water in the case of retirees who go blind later in life or other home based use cases. How many regular people have autocad in their house in case they want to doodle?

If I'm an engineer, I buy autocad. It is crutial to my job. It accellerates my workflow and directly earnes me money. If I had a professional recording studio, I'd pay top dollar for protools. Thousands or 10's of thousands of dollars for a licence is nothing, because knowledge and use of these tools generates direct return on investment in the millians or greater. Jaws does not offer anything close to that, so there's no comparison to be made at all.

Do I want cheaper Jaws? Of course who wants to pay more for anything!
Dont forget Jaws was providing access long before anyone else and it was
very good access at that. It has taken over 20years for someone to
provide a no cost alternative for the PC.
On 10/3/2017 7:58 PM, Gene wrote:

It should be pointed out that System Access isn't at all

equivalent > to

JAWS or Window-eyes. It cost less because it was much less

capable > and

didn't have to work with nearly as many programs. And it was often
purchased, not as a standalone product, but with the SAM Network. I
don't know if I have the name just right. But it could be purchased
either alone or as an integrated product and I wouldn't be

surprised

if a lot or most purchasers purchased the whole package, which may
have further led to lowering costs. Agencies wouldn't have

purchased

it in general because their thrust was employment and System Access
wasn't intended as an employment product.
It was intended to give Internet Access, access to certain e-mail
programs and to simple word processing. It cost about half as

much as

JAWS and Window-eyes and it was perhaps one-third as powerful.
Around 2000, whoever owned JAWS at that time attempted to

address the

affordability problem by making a product, Connect Outloud. I

believe

you could buy it and it also came, bundled for free with Openbook.
What I heard when it was discontinued after perhaps two or three years
was that there wasn't enough demand to justify continuing it.
It provided Internet access, access to Winamp, Outlook Express,
Wordpad, and it may have provided access to one or two other >

programs.

I'm not sure why it wasn't popular at the time, given the number of
home users who didn't need a powerful screen-reader and the

price of

JAWS and Window-eyes and, as I recall, it was before System Access.
But those who insist on viewing whoever owns JAWS throughout its
history as predators, perhaps they should consider this

information.

As far as whether HJAWs developers do enough work to justify the price
currently, I don't know.
Gene
----- Original Message -----
*From:* Lino Morales <mailto:linomorales001@...>
*Sent:* Tuesday, October 03, 2017 6:08 PM
*To:* nvda@nvda.groups.io <mailto:nvda@nvda.groups.io>
*Subject:* Re: [nvda] WebAim Screen Reader User Survey #7:

Getting > The

Word Out About NVDA

Great post Eric. I wasn't around in the 70's or didn't know jack horse
maneur about AT. Viva la NVDA!


On 10/2/2017 5:50 PM, erik burggraaf wrote:

Lots of for proffit companies made free or low cost screen

readers.

Serotek for one. Apple for another. I'd say both companies were
successful to one degree or another. So, why didn't we see
governments lining up to pay for system access? Well, to a lesser
extent some did, but if screen readers cost less, then the funding
becomes less and the portfoleos of nondisabled people making big
money from accessibility legislation shrink. We certainly don't

want

that. But even at that, system access and the system access

network

lasted for a very long time, largely on consumer driven support.

NVDA didn't succeed because it was not for proffit. It succeded
because of the dedication of the people who started it, and the
following those founders were able to inspire. It's sustainable
because of the people who work on it. The fact that it is non for
proffit gives it certain advantages such as the fact that it

can't >> be

subsumed by a for proffit. Lots of free windows screen readers
entered and left the market in the past 10 years. NVDA is the only
one to thrive, much less survive, and it's because of the talendt,
and the management.

Then again, the fact that NVDA itself is non for proffit hasn't
prevented the organization from accepting grants and sponsorships
from for proffit companies, and whatever I may think of those
companies individually, the output from those grants

contributed to

the general effectiveness of NVDA, which lead to more adoption

which

lead to donation revinue, which lead to more improvements until we
have the body of work which now is viable enough to stand up to a
commercial product in the vast majority of situations.

So, we'll have to agree to disagree on this. I've heard all the
arguments for nearly as long as you have. I'll allow there was a
time when they may have made sense to one degree or another.
Certainly the first opticon and kurzweil reading machine costed
enormously more in terms of research and development than say the
knfb reader mobile app. In fact, vast commercial uses for

scanning,

ocr, text to speech, dictation, and other technologies

developed for

disability communities are prevailant and highly intergrated into
modern society. Accessibility legislation is between 25 and 50

years

old. Commercial standards for developing things to be

accessible are

well established and supported by legislation. Time and talent

still

cost money, but we stand on the shoulders of giants. It's not what
it was in the late 70's and early 80's. Completely different

situation.

Best,

Erik

On October 2, 2017 5:25:39 PM "Gene" <gsasner@...> wrote:

That is not correct and I've seen that argument many times.

JAWS is

expensive because it is a specialized product with a tiny market.
If Windows had the number of users JAWS has, it would be
exorbitantly expensive as well. It's mass production with

enormous

customer bases that makes most manufactured products we use
inexpensive. You can argue about whether institutions could cause
the price of JAWS to be lower by negotiating, I don't know if the
owners of JAWS charge more than they need to to make a

product. But

anyone on this list who purchases or has purchased a

sophisticated

computer program that sells to a very small audience will confirm
that such products are very expensive. Institutions may be
bureaucratic but they aren't fools. Entrepreneurs are creative

and

inventive. If it were possible to have a screen-reader with the
power and sophistication of JAWS for significantly less, someone
would have entered the market at a cheaper price. They've had

more

than two decades to do so in the case of Windows screen-readers.
Where are they, or even one?
The only way a powerful screen-reader has been developed that is
within the reach of a lot of blind people is to completely work
outside of the for profit model. NVDA is free because it is not a
for profit product and relies on people working for about minimum
wage, grants, and volunteers to develop and create add ons. Which
proves my point. Someone else did fill the need for a

screen-reader

for people who can't afford a for profit screen--reader but it

was

outside of the for profit model. Entrepreneurs are creative and
motivated enough that, as I said, if a for profit screen-reader
could be developed for a significantly cheaper price, it would

have

been long ago.
Gene
----- Original Message -----
*From:* erik burggraaf <mailto:erik@...>
*Sent:* Monday, October 02, 2017 4:03 PM
*To:* nvda@nvda.groups.io <mailto:nvda@nvda.groups.io>
*Subject:* Re: [nvda] WebAim Screen Reader User Survey #7:

Getting

The Word Out About NVDA

Accessibility laws change the game. The market for jaws is
different from the market of most other products. The primary target
market doesn't actually use the product. The reason commercial
screen readers are sustainable is that governments in developed
countrys have legislated that the government must accept the
financial cost of communication aids for people with print
disabilities as a means of leveling the playing field. That is

why

the cost of the tecchnologies has always been out of reach for

most

blind consumers, and very little to do with the development

cost >>> and

comparitive small size of the market as most commercial access
technologists claim.

So, there's no evidence to suggest that vfo or any company is
planning to jack up prices even higher than they already are, but
there are legislative hooks that might allow them to if they wanted.

I really think though that they are battoning down and

preparing to

ride out the end times with what they have. The consolidation has
pretty much taken place. A few straglers haven't bought in or

bowed

out, but they have unique markets of their own.

The government funding that constitutes the primary support for
products like jaws is on the severe decline as the use cases

for >>> the

products over cheeper less specialized alternatives growes

less and

less by the day. If the size of the market dictated the price as
they always claimed, then considering the dwindling share of the
market controlled by commercial AT, it makes sense that the price
would go up, especially in the case of VFO's new exclusivity
agreements in geographic regions that were either not

controlled or

controlled by companies that are no more. The odd thing is, with
NVDA distributed free as a noncommercial product, I doubt it

falls

under the commercial exclusivity agreements anyhow.

Best,

Erik

On October 2, 2017 4:24:22 PM "Gene" <gsasner@...> wrote:

Why would the owners of JAWS commit suicide or strongly

encourage

purchasers not to use their product by doing something

ridiculous,

as you suggest? They won't. I don't know if they will try
different prices as time goes on to get the most profit from the
most or optimum number of sales, but that is different from
behaving irrationally. Is this part of the JAWS is greedy and

can

charge anything it wants argument? It doesn't matter in the
context of this argument, that I've heard for two decades

with no

meaningful proof given, whether JAWS is greedy or not. What
matters is that JAWS doesn't exist in a vacuum. It may charge

what

the market will bear but it still operates in a market. If
institutions are willing to pay a price, JAWS may decide to

charge

it. But that doesn't mean that institutions are irrational. They
aren't going to accept a thousand percent price rise of a

product

just because JAWS owners decide to try to charge it.
Gene
----- Original Message -----
*From:* Sky Mundell <mailto:skyt@...>
*Sent:* Monday, October 02, 2017 3:00 PM
*To:* nvda@nvda.groups.io <mailto:nvda@nvda.groups.io>
*Subject:* Re: [nvda] WebAim Screen Reader User Survey #7:

Getting

The Word Out About NVDA

I totally agree with you Erick. The education institutions that
deliver equipment to students in Vancouver and around BC and

here

in Victoria haven’t really embraced NVDA but I can see them
embracing NVDA sooner rather than later. Remember, FS always saw
its main competition, Window-Eyes as a threat. Since the main
competition is now gone, , eventually VFO could raise the

price of

JAWS a lot higher, say, to $10000 or so, and that would force
educational institutions to go with NVDA.

*From:*nvda@nvda.groups.io [mailto:nvda@nvda.groups.io] *On

Behalf

Of *erik burggraaf
*Sent:* Monday, October 02, 2017 10:12 AM
*To:* nvda@nvda.groups.io
*Subject:* Re: [nvda] WebAim Screen Reader User Survey #7:

Getting

The Word Out About NVDA

The sample size is very small in these surveys, but they
definitely show the paradigm shift and I won't be surprised

at all

to see mobile, mac voiceover, and nvda useage up, and jaws

useage

down. Window-eyes use should fall right off the charts since the
product is discontinued. This will help slow the skid of

jaws, but

I think at least as many window-eyes switchers made it to

NVDA as

to jaws, despite the fact that jaws 18 was a free upgrade for

Many

window-eyes users.

Since the new paradigm puts the blind more or less on an equal
playing field, and social, legal and economic trends all support
moving in that direction it shouldn't be too surprising that

blind

users want it more and more. I have thought for years that

2021 is

about the final stopping point for old paradigm designs,
particularly the personal computer, but I can see a lot of
tradition going by the board by then. This is all good for

us, and

it's nice to have something concreet to demonstrate the trend we
can all see happening around us.

Have fun,

Erik

On October 2, 2017 12:57:37 AM "Sarah k Alawami"
<marrie12@... <mailto:marrie12@...>> wrote:

Wow, interesting. I'm not surprised. I wonder what we'll see
this year now that a lot of us are switching to nvda and or
android and or voiceover.

Take care



On Oct 1, 2017, at 9:34 PM, Gene New Zealand
<hurrikennyandopo@...
<mailto:hurrikennyandopo@...>> wrote:

hi Bhavya

I have been following the surveys after they survey has

finished.

I have also been noticing that the number of jaws users have
been dropping along with a few of the commercial screen users
and magnifiers etc.

Also the use of mobile units starting to rise as in the use of
android and apple devices that can go portable.

For me mostly home use is nvda 100 percent of the time and if
mobile a android device.

Gene nz

On 10/1/2017 2:20 AM, Bhavya shah wrote:

Dear all,

Since almost a decade, WebAim, a non-profit web

accessibility

consultancy organisation, has been conducting an annual
(sometimes

biennial) survey, which, as its name implies, attempts to
gather

statistics about the usage share of different screen

readers,

technology (particularly Internet) accessibility trends,
etc. so as to

aid analysts, researchers, accessibility consultants,

sighted

developers, and mainstream companies to get a quantified
picture of

the state of the AT industry.

While this survey features participation from varied
geographies,

NVDA’s user base, at least in my personal view, has

always been

understated. While 8% respondents of the first December
2008 WebAim

survey reported to be NVDA users, this figure has only
increased to

14% of respondents in its 2015 counterpart claiming to use
NVDA as

their primary screen reader and 41% using it commonly, a
usage share

substantially lower than NVDA’s commercial and more
expensive screen

reading alternatives.

I think it would be a great way of playing our tiny part in
getting

the word out about NVDA’s viability and competency if

all NVDA

community members, users, testers and other related parties,

particularly from second and third world developing regions
which

often remain silent for such surveys but where free and
open source

NVDA makes a prominent impact, take this survey and
contribute to

letting the world know about the size and standing of the
NVDA user

base.

The URL of said survey is
https://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey7/

.

It took me about ten minutes to fill this survey and the
form was

extremely accessible. Not only from an NVDA angle, but
filling such

surveys always brings out useful and reflective data,
which, in turn,

betters AT as a whole. Therefore, I urge everyone to take
some time

out for this survey so that we can make the data truly
reflective of

the actualities.

Thanks.

P.S. I am in no way affiliated to WebAim nor is my
intention to merely

promote this survey.

--
Image NVDA certified expert

Check out my website for NVDA tutorials and other blindness
related material at http://www.accessibilitycentral.net
<http://www.accessibilitycentral.net/> Regardless of where you
are in New Zealand if you are near one of the APNK sites you
can use a copy of the NVDA screen reader on one of their
computers. To find out which locations (or location) is near to
you please visit
http://www.aotearoapeoplesnetwork.org/content/partner-libraries
(Aotearoa People's Network Kaharoa). To find an NVDA certified
expert near you, please visit the following link
https://certification.nvaccess.org/. The certification page
contains the official list of NVDA certified individuals from
around the world, who have sat and successfully passed the NVDA
expert exam.

--
Sincereley: Randy Barnett
Owner of Soundtique.
707-502-5575
1897 SE Dr.
Grants Pass, Or. 97526

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