Hello folks. I received a call last week at work from a salesman type
who said that I should come and see the preview of Windows 98 at the end of
May at some conference, whose name I don't remember. He said that his
company had the only access to the pre-release code, and that we could come
and see, first hand, the direction Microsoft was taking in the software
development arena.
My first thoughts, of course, turned to accessibility, and the level of
awareness in the disabled community about this alleged development. How
much, for example, has Microsoft said to the disabled community about these
activities? And, to the extent of that awareness, what steps has the
disabled community taken to insure that it is intimately involved in the
accessible evolution of this bergeoning operating system?
If this salesman is right, then we, as blind consumers, need to make sure
that we're tapping on Microsoft's door saying that now that you have
committed to making your products accessible, how about letting us help you
design efficiency and ease of use for the disabled into your products as
well. If we step up to the task early enough, we'll be able to help you
make the basic system more accessible at relatively low cost, when compared
with the task of retrofitting it later.
I don't have anymore news at the moment, but I'd be pleased if anyone
either from Microsoft, or from without Microsoft, wanted to coment on what
they know of this situation.
-Brian
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Dec 02 2012 - 01:30:04 PST