[access-uk] Re: Perkins and Penfriend
- From: "Jackie Cairns" <jackie.cairns@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 25 Jul 2009 14:44:03 +0100
Hi
I agree with Paul's sentiments. And I feel it is important that as many
companies and organisations as possible join the list, along with users, to get
a feel for what people think about products and services. In this regard, it
then gives the company or organisation the opportunity to reply in an open
forum where we can all learn or contribute accordingly.
Jackie Cairns
Braille Specialist
Email: Jackie.Cairns@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sight and Sound Technology Ltd
Welton House North Wing
Summerhouse Road
Moulton Park
Northampton
NN3 6WD
Telephone: 01604 798024
Fax: 01604 798090
Web: www.sightandsound.co.uk
-----Original Message-----
From: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Paul Leake
Sent: 21 July 2009 20:20
To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [access-uk] Re: Perkins and Penfriend
john, a most positive contribution and i would welcome further as appropriate.
your response was open, informative and appreciated.
Cheers
Paul
paul.leake@xxxxxxxxxxxx
----- Original Message -----
From: John <mailto:john.godber@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, July 20, 2009 5:55 PM
Subject: [access-uk] Perkins and Penfriend
Hello everyone,
I'm on this list as a private individual but in my "day job" I am Head
of Products and Publications for RNIB and having seen some recent exchanges I
thought I could be helpful with some comments and information.
First the Perkins. Yes the price is high but this isn't because anybody
is taking a big margin or making a profit. Certainly the Perkins in the UK is
significantly cheaper than almost anywhere else in the developed world. Prices
in Europe and Australia were at over £600 last year and will be increasing
again. We have been hit in the UK by the weakness of the pound against the
dollar and the Perkins is costing us more.
There are some alternatives like the Tatrapoint but whenever we have
imported and sold them here they have never been at all popular. The recent
increase in the Perkins price though will cause us to look at the alternatives
again. In the meantime RNIB has a website with information about a wide range
of products including Braille writing machines which you can find at
http://www.tiresias.org/research/devices/index.htm. The information for
the most part was last updated just over a year ago and there are links and
email addresses for most suppliers so you can follow them up for updated
details and prices.
Something you won't find on there yet are our new upward writing
Braille frames. . As well as the little pocket Braille King (named after the
man in RNIB who designed it) we now have two single line A4 width frames which
incorporate a roller mechanism. One of these is an upward writer which means
you prick out the dots from left to right and form the characters the right way
round. You can roll out the paper, read what you've written and roll it back to
carry on. Of course this is no good for writing long letters but it's fine for
short notes, labels etc. There is also a conventional downward writing version
of the Roller frame for people who are used to the right to left writing of
traditional frames. I was never taught that at school and personally find the
new upward writing frames very much easier to use. The roller frames cost
£29.99 and the upward has the product code BF22 and the traditional roller is
BF23. They are both on the online shop. Easiest way to find them is to do a
search for "roller". I know they aren't writing machines as such but if
somebody wants something low cost that you can use for occasional short things
then they might fit the bill.
As to the issue of prices. Generally RNIB in the UK offers lower prices
than most other similar organisations in other countries. We no longer directly
subsidise each item we sell. This is mainly for two reasons - first when we
offered a heavily subsidised price for individuals we found that organisations
such as schools and social services would get their clients to buy at the
subsidised price and then pay them back. This made their budgets stretch
further of course but also meant that RNIB's donated income was subsidising
government which is not what any of us would want. The second reason for
removing the direct subsidy is that it made it impossible for other people to
enter the market and compete. Commercial companies still frequently complain
that we are artificially affecting the market and making it hard for people to
compete. Well we are not in the business of making life easy for commercial
companies but we do want competition because it sharpens manufacturers and
suppliers, stimulates innovation and generally keeps us all on our toes.
If RNIB subsidised everything then the competition would disappear and
we'd all have to buy only products offered by RNIB. However commercial
companies will not go into any areas or product ranges where they can't make a
return on their investments. So if you go to somewhere like Sight Village you
will see dozens of video magnifiers but hardly any choice of Braille writers
and tactile watches.
We do have a mission to bring prices down generally and you may be
aware of things like our Seika Braille display which is about half the price of
any other similar device, the new Synergy CCTV/Video magnifier which we
designed with Humanware which is about £500 cheaper than other devices with the
same functionality. We have new tactile watches specially designed for us and
selling at £17.99 which is undoubtedly a good price compared to previous
products
Then there is our much-talked of Penfriend which is much cheaper than
any previous similar labelling product. You may shortly see our RNIB Penfriend
on sale in other countries but in all cases the price will be higher.
Just for the record I can say, as the man on the video, that we did
not artificially enhance the sound of the product nor would we ever. We made
the video cheaply and quickly in my office with the objective of giving people
a better idea of what the product does for people who wouldn't easily get to
Sight Village or a resource centre.
We were very keen to get the product into the UK for sight village
because it's a good way of getting the word out quickly and widely about new
products. One of the things that saddens me most is coming across people who
simply had no idea that some products exist and are needlessly struggling and
getting frustrated with simple everyday tasks. We had expected the products to
arrive two weeks before Sight Village but they are made out in China to keep
costs down and you can't always be absolutely sure on delivery from such a
distance. They were hand delivered to our stand on the Wednesday by the
inventor and also some are in our warehouse in Peterborough. They should all
be with customers by the weekend. 4,000 in total are due by mid August and once
production is better matched to demand things should be much smoother. Just for
information RNIB runs on average at 5 per cent out of stock with products which
is actually a very good position. So on 95 per cent of occasions products are
in stock - though of course it never feels like that when you personally order
something which isn't available.
Well I'll leave it there for now. I have been reluctant to comment on
discussions on this list because I worry that people will think that their
conversations are being watched by the bureaucrat from RNIB but if list members
would welcome our engaging more often with some factual commentaries on issues
that have been raised then I would gladly do so.
John
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