The notion that we should have to now beg Microsoft to do what they should have done from the beginning, indeed to do what they told several of us they were doing only to discover they were not following through on their word, is troubling to me.
Let's get a few point right here. This is Microsoft we're talking about. The biggest software maker in the world. A company that makes very public professions of support for accessibility. A company with practically unlimited resources both in terms of money and programming talent.
They had access to VoiceOver, they had access to the publicly published accessibility guidelines. They had access at no cost to the Xcode development environment. Like every other developer they were given clear and unambiguous instructions on how to write their software to meet the requirements of the MacOS. How is it that a lone developer in Germany is able to produce an accessible spreadsheet in a matter of two months time and Microsoft is not?
They were contacted on many occasions by myself and others about accessibility issues, contacts which they clearly paid no head too.
Now when we complain about this oversight, when we suggest that their deeds do not match their words we are told to go on bended knee and plead for them to fix what never should have been broken to start with. Give me a break!
Greg Kearney 535 S. Jackson St. Casper, Wyoming 82601 307-224-4022 gkearney@xxxxxxxxx On Jan 22, 2008, at 6:32 PM, David Poehlman wrote:
Microsoft has been shamming the assistive technology community for years and throwing money around like it's watter to underline their point but at the end of the day, how much of microsoft is really accessible and how much of it is accessible because the little guys sweatted bullets and hacked intosoftware and operating systems to make it happen. ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Hess" <johnythehess@xxxxxxxxx> To: <macvoiceover@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 8:21 PMSubject: [macvoiceover] Re: Fwd: Microsoft office 2008 for macintosh. pleaseread this Cheryl, you raise some very valid points and I don't have an answer for that. Perhaps in our minds it's too late but in my opinion any opportunity we have to share our concerns is a valid one. If anyone knows about the need for accessibility it is certainly Microsoft. They have made changes in windows apps to accommodate this need. the name "Microsoft accessibility" says it all doesn't it? On Jan 22, 2008, at 7:49 PM, Cheryl Homiak wrote:I'm sorry but this doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Is Microsoft trying to say they are in the dark about what the problems are and need us to tell them about it? The developers were certainly able to turn on voiceover and see what the issues were. Had they asked us for this feedback before 08 was released I could see it but why now when the cow is already out of the barn so to speak? I could also understand it had it not ben reported on this list that office 08 was expected to be accessible. Likde David, I'm not shooting the messenger and i hope this isn't a sham but I have to say I have definite doubts.John W. Hess & Barclay the WonderLabClick on the link below to go to our homepage. http://www.icanworkthisthing.comManage your subscription by using the web interface on the link below.//www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceover Users can subscribe to this list by sending email to macvoiceover-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'subscribe' in the Subject field OR by logging into the Web interface at //www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceover
Click on the link below to go to our homepage. http://www.icanworkthisthing.com Manage your subscription by using the web interface on the link below. //www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceoverUsers can subscribe to this list by sending email to macvoiceover-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'subscribe' in the Subject field OR by logging into the Web interface at //www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceover
