I can't help, but jump in here because although I understand what everyone is saying, its what I'm reading. What I hear folks saying is that adaptive technology vendors charge to much for their products, I read how Apple there are no choices, folks don't like the choices, and open source seems to be the poop. Well first I never had any problem with someone making a buck, yes its true that blind people pay considerably more for the product, but one the flip side there is a lot of r and d that goes into some of these products. I'm not justifying what they are charging, but I'm saying lets not loose focus. Not everyone wants to develop open source solution, and those who do, great, for those who would rather turn it into a business, well good for them and that is their right. It doesn't matter what they charge, by having choices, this will help control the prices to some degree because if company A is charging $1,000 for a product and company B is selling a very similar product for $750, then it would become apparent to Company A that maybe they need to look at their pricing. Also its true that most adaptive vendors sell fewer units than the "mainstream" vendor so it stand s to reason they need to charge more in order to make up for the smaller sales. Is this right? Well maybe not, but its a fact of life and survival. You can put food on the table if your only selling a dozen units at $100 when a "mainstream" vendor sells a product for the same $100, but is selling thousands. I guess my point is that the reallity and the fairness don't meet. I'm not disagreeing with anyone, bu trying to present another view point. I am equally frustrated by what is costs for some of the adaptive gear like a braille display, but I also realize that since they cost more than I choose to spend, I don't own one. As far as Apple's VoiceOver, I use it everyday and quite successfully. There is no other choice because no one has stepped up to the plate and produced one. It stands to reason there is more for the world of windows because numbers speak for themselves. I think there's a lot for Linux because folks made the concious choice to produce their own screen reader and yeah open source made this possible. This topic really is rather complicated because there's so many different aspects to it. There is no one answer, but at least now there are more than one pda or access solution for the computer overall and that is a good thing. Oh one final comment. Apple might have requirements that developers should follow in order to make their apps accessible, but gee so does Microsoft with MSAA. Not all apps use this of course, but the screen readers for windows are years ahead of VoiceOver and VoiceOver has only been around for a short time in comparison. What will make a difference regardless of what platform or screen reader you choose to use is the level of interest in the screen reader and the level of development and these directly related. So, there's my quarters worth on the topic even if a bit lenghty...grin Scott
