1. Messages
  2. Interesting news

Re: Interesting news

multi 85
 

I think the two things we can be worried a bit about is that Microsoft
had a deal with GW Micro for the Office venture. Point being that, now
these two huge companies are rolled into one, Microsoft might start
treating them as some sort of only voice of the blind community or the
major screenreader group they will only work with since businesses buy
their products?
The other episode I think we must not forget, is what happened a few
years ago where Freedom Scientific products stopped supporting older
braille displays and also made manufacturers pay for these so-called
"secure" driver scheme, trying to also channel users to switch to the
focus range.
It will be interesting to see what happens, but I am really hoping
that the other very few remaining screenreader manufacturers or groups
will survive. Since NVDA is free and developed by a universal
community, I think I don't fear as much for it as compared to maybe
the smaller proprietory manufacturers, but that is hopefully assuming
that this new huge company doesn't somehow get preferential treatment.

On 6/14/16, Antony Stone <Antony.Stone@...> wrote:
What's in it for Microsoft to bother with such a move?

Do they sell more copies of Windows? Very very marginally, perhaps. They
seem to be giving Windows away for nothing these days anyway.

Will they gain market share over the competiton (ie: Apple)? I don't think
so
- Apple has a very good screen reader built in to iOS, and people who like
Apple will continue to use Apple; those who like Windows will continue to
use
Windows.

No, NV Access doesn't need to be bought by Microsoft - it needs investment
from a company which can get NVDA used by the big corporates and public
sector
who currently pay for JAWS licences, but could do so much better with an
open
source licence-free solution.

As with all open source software, the market is in support, not in supplying

it in the first place (look at Red Hat and their business model). Microsoft

has nothing to gain by acquiring NV Access, but someone with a brand name
behind them (so that they get taken seriously by large employers) and the
facilities to provide support for NVDA could do very well, both for
themselves
and for NV Access.


Well, that's my opinion, anyway.


Antony.

On Tuesday 14 June 2016 at 21:07:44, erik burggraaf wrote:

Microsoft should buy NVDA for a huge sum of money and hire mic and James
to
head the project. Narrater should be scrapped and NVDA should be built
into windows.
--
A user interface is like a joke.
If you have to explain it, it didn't work.

Please reply to the
list;
please *don't* CC
me.
Join nvda@nvda.groups.io to automatically receive all group messages.