[Athen] Slightly OT: A concern for the future of Windows-based AT

[Dan Comden]

Hi Deborah,
Thanks for linking the article. The following is not directed at you. And
your article is not Off Topic at all.

How about a different position -- AT has things handled. For the most part,
screenreaders, TTS, STS, magnifiers -- they all understand basic underlying
html.

So who is getting it wrong? The companies putting out shoddy interfaces and
non-standard apps? Or the browsers? Assistive tech for the most part has it
handled.

Discuss.

-*- Dan

On Mon, Jul 23, 2018 at 1:46 PM, Deborah Armstrong <
armstrongdeborah at fhda.edu> wrote:


> Bloomberg has an interesting story about Amy Hood, Microsoft’s CFO.

>

>

>

> One business trend for this past decade is that a CFO is no longer a

> glorified accountant/budget analyst. They are now part of the senior

> management team – determiners of strategy rather than implementers.

> Microsoft’ Q4 earnings report came out Thursday and according to Bloomberg,

> investors are saying Ms. Hood is the best CFO Microsoft has ever had.

>

>

>

> One thing she’s done is take money away from legacy divisions and put it

> in to the cloud. Since 2002 when she was hired her goal is to move

> Microsoft more towards cloud-based subscription models for their products –

> I’m paraphrasing Bloomberg here—previously most divisions could ask for

> what they wanted budget-wise and could expect to get it – that’s no longer

> true.  Bloomberg also comments that Ms. Hood timed her start date back in

> 2002 to get maximum access to the employee stock purchase plan.

>

>

>

> So despite what we see at conferences with Microsoft’s waving of the

> accessibility banner, I don’t think it’s going to be smooth sailing ahead.

> If it doesn’t improve growth it’s going to be ignored.

>

>

>

> The earnings reports no longer say anything about Windows, so we can

> assume it is gradually going to just be a framework for a browser; already

> most new apps are PWAS (progressive web apps) which means no installation,

> no data on your own PC, but you need to be online to access any of it.

>

>

>

> This means that AT is going to need to get much better at dealing with

> progressive web apps and other online offerings. For keyboard users, there

> is no longer a consistent, reliable set of keystrokes for operating

> web-based applications. For screen reader users, just to take one example,

> pressing Tab can take you out of the application and in to the address bar

> which is very confusing; imagine if a single and frequently used keystroke

> could dump you out of the operating system! For magnification users, the

> lack of standards in a web-based interface means that you can miss

> important information because you weren’t looking in the right place.

>

>

>

> The full Bloomberg story is here:

>

>                 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-16/how-

> amy-hood-won-back-wall-street-and-helped-reboot-microsoft

>

>

>

> --Debee

>

>

>

>

>

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>

>



-- 
-*- Dan Comden                       danc at uw.edu <danc at washington.edu>
    Access Technology Center   www.uw.edu/itconnect/accessibility/atl/
    University of Washington      UW Information Technology
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