Hey Mike, I've have essentially been told in the past that Illinois often ops for Freedom Scientific because of the bulk discounts. I do know that some people have had the state purchase Kurzweil for them however. I seriously doubt however that Freedom Scientific will ever show the commitment Kurzweil does unless everything does a 180. OpenBook lacks in quite a few areas. For instance, the set page number option works only for setting a number higher. When it comes to books, we want just the opposite. OpenBook does not understand the concept of pages below #1. The spell checker is meager at best. The online downloads area works some of the time with some of the sites. Since last July when I got the product, there has been one minor update to it that including bug fixes and the new Fine Reader engine. The update came about four months after Kurzweil released the Fine Reader update. Such a delay is rediculous OpenBooks ability to use speech synthesizers other than what it ships with is nonexistent. It ships with IBM ViaVoice the so called tel voices. I'm I'm assuming that tel stands for telephone since that's what it sounds like the synthesizer is talking through. The program includes no ranked spelling or confidence level analyzing. The program cannot scan and recognize documents simultaneously. There isn't any kind of optimization feature. The find/replace functions are meager at best. If there are any special character support I have yet to find it in the documentation or the program. Heck, it doesn't even support a character like the degree sign, something often mistaken for an o. DAISY books, it doesn't open them properly. Although the bug with truncating them seems to have been addressed. The DAISY books when open are given what seem to be random page breaks, books that Kurzweil properly paginates. Common dialog controls haven't been updated in years. VB6 common dialogues properly work in the WinXP environment and the ones inside OpenBook do not. Old document structure. The programs default store location is something like this: C:\OPENBK7\Users\Default\Library I would think today that a better location would be My Docs or a subfolder under it. And I'm sure there are more, these are just some of the problems the program faces. Don't get me wrong, the program could be worth its $, but right now its just definitely not when compared to K1K. I know you didn't ask for a diatribe on the dooms of OpenBook, but this shows why I'm not quite as optomistic as you about competitiveness abounding. Cheers! Jake ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Pietruk" <pietruk@xxxxxxxxx> To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 11:26 AM Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: The Wonders of Kurzweil > Kellie > > I suspect that there are practical reasons why rehab agencies opt for > specific programs or equipment over another. > One could be the comfort level that the agency has if it needs to provide > instruction in the use of the software or hardware; > it is easier if everyone is using the same thing. > A 2nd reason, in the case of Freedom Scientific which is a supplier of all > sorts of adaptive equipment, > is that they can obtain volume discounts by purchasing continually and in > bulk. > It is also possible they feel comfortable in an ongoing working > relationship with a company or certain individuals within that company.. > > While I am not a rehab client myself here in Illinois, from those clients > I have come across, it seems that when it comes to scanning software, Open > Book is the preference. > I am certain that it is only a matter of time, in a competitive market, > that Open Book will incorporate K1000 features and vice versa. > > > > > > -- > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. > Version: 7.0.323 / Virus Database: 267.7.10/25 - Release Date: 6/21/2005 > >