[Athen] Upcoming changes to Dragon NS

[Cassandra Tex]

Hi All,

Regarding the Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking conversation.  Though I am
not a certified ATP, non-ATP’s can join the RESNA listserv.  I received
this today from the RESNA listserv…



Hope the it’s the same information that is shared on Dec. 11



*From:* RESNA's Assistive Technology Forum <AT-FORUM at LIST.RESNA.ORG> *On
Behalf Of *Raymond Grott
*Sent:* Tuesday, December 08, 2020 1:35 PM
*To:* AT-FORUM at LIST.RESNA.ORG
*Subject:* UPDATE on Dragon software product line and opportunity for input



Dear AT Forum and RESNA Connect members:

The draft letter to Nuance regarding possible changes to the Dragon product
line that we posted to this group has resulted in some positive
discussions. Alan Cantor, Jane Berliss-Vincent, and Ray Grott met yesterday
with the General Manager for the Dragon Professional and Consumer Business
and a Senior Product Manager who reports to him. Here are a few key
take-aways:



Despite whatever confusion may have been generated in communication with
their vendors, Nuance is fully committed to maintaining and continuing
their “desktop” products for the non-medical market (Dragon Home, Dragon
Professional Individual, and Dragon Professional Group).



They are also rolling out their cloud-based Dragon Professional Anywhere
solution, which will help them meet the needs of those enterprise accounts
that are looking for a solution that is easier to deploy across a large
organization and that takes up fewer desktop computing resources—albeit
without command and control features that are only available on a local
installation.



Because of development and other costs, they will be increasing the retail
price of Dragon Home, from $150 to $200 USD, and DPI from $300 to $500.
Dragon Professional Anywhere will be priced at $40/mo on a
subscription-only basis for individual users. (We didn’t discuss the
pricing for site licenses and enterprise users, as that is not of interest
to us. However, we did learned that educational institutions qualify for
academic discounts on DPG.)



Nuance is not only committed to providing solutions that enhance
accessibility and usability, they also maintain a desire to keep their
product within reach of those who need this tool as an accommodation for
physical and cognitive needs. They acknowledge our concern that these users
often have limited income and are proposing a pricing structure where the
current $240 pricing for the Academic version will be extended to this
broader group of users. It is likely that this will be managed through
their reseller networks. Note that this is not in place yet.



They expressed a serious desire to hear about and address software bugs and
usability problems. We shared a few choice ones with them and encouraged
them to establish a better pipeline for receiving this input. We also
stressed the need for them to hire users with disabilities to test new
releases for issues, as they may often do so in ways that a programmer
conducting a feature run through would not.



Finally, all parties are keen on connecting Nuance’s project management
team with RESNA members and other Dragon users and AT specialists to
discuss product features and possible enhancements. We told them that the
RESNA leadership would be happy to facilitate a virtual meeting for this
purpose and we will be sharing contact information between them. You will
be hearing more about this in the near future.



Alan, Jane, and Ray







*From:* athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> *On
Behalf Of *foreigntype at gmail.com
*Sent:* Tuesday, December 08, 2020 12:22 PM
*To:* athen-list at u.washington.edu
*Subject:* [Athen] Upcoming changes to Dragon NS



A drastic change has been announced regarding the future of Dragon NS as
assistive technology in the near future. NOAT technology association is
sponsoring a webinar with Nuance execs coming up soon to discuss the impact
Nuance's proposed changes will have for the product and its availability.

The upshot is that Nuance has announced they're moving away from a
stand-alone individual license for laptops/desktops and only offering the
cloud-based subscription version of Dragon Anywhere.

MHO is that this does not serve the disabled community or the community
with spotty, unreliable, or non-existent internet/wifi access and I've
written in as part of a national petition of DSS service providers to
demand (request strongly) that Nuance continue to offer downloadable single
user laptop or desktop options.

If you and/or your colleagues want to learn more about this and want to
have the chance to speak up to Nuance directly, please join in on this
webinar:

*FROM NOAT: The Future of Dragon as Assistive Technology*

Recently Dragon has been in the AT News, rumoured to be making substantial
changes to their products and pricing. If implemented, these changes would
have an immense negative impact on those we support.

Join The Network of Assistive Technologists as we welcome *Jamey Klein*,
Account Executive, Dragon Enterprise Sales, *Mike Millward*, Senior Dragon
Product Manager, and *Ed McGuiggan*, General Manager of the Dragon
Professional & Consumer business.

Jamey, Mike, and Ed will be addressing these recent rumours, discussing our
concerns, as well as reviewing the Dragon product roadmap and collecting
overall feedback to help shape the future of Dragon.

*All members of the Assistive Technology Professionals community are
invited to join us on Friday, December 11, 2020 at 1:30pm Eastern.*

*For full details and to register, please visit the N.O.A.T. Events Site.*

We look forward to seeing you online Friday, December 11, 2020 at 1:30pm
Eastern





Wink Harner

Accessibility Consultant/Alternative Text Production

The Foreign Type

Portland OR
foreigntype at gmail.com
480-984-0034

This email was dictated using Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Please forgive
quirks, misrecognitions, or errata .



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