All About Access

I had heard the rumors…. Read about the [Window-Eyes Lease-To-Own Program](http://www.gwmicro.com/lto/ “GWMicro’s Window-Eyes Lease-to-Own Program”). Veeeeery interesting. I’m still mulling this over, but here’s what I’m thinking…

Pros:

1. Assistive technology costs quite a bit of money. A Lease-to-Own program means that people who can neither afford to shell out the requisite chunk of change, nor finance it through a grant, loan, or credit card, have a new option.
2. If my math is correct (which is always highly doubtful!), the cost difference is 9.5%. Window-Eyes Professional with a full SMA is normally $1050. If you go the LTO route it’s $1150. If you compare that to credit card finance charges, it’s not a great deal—but it’s not a bad deal either.
3. A certain amount of flexibility. From their FAQ:
   

   1. Q. What happens if I can not make a payment one month?
      
   2. A. We know that sometimes the funds just aren’t available. So we offer an additional three month grace period to each plan. If you can’t make a payment one month, don’t worry. Window-Eyes will convert to a 30-minute demo, but you’ll be able to continue payments at your convenience.
      

Cons:

1. This statement:
   

   Customers who take longer than the payment period may be required to start their payment schedule over.

   I know it says “may” and not “will.” I also realize that if a person does not fulfill their end of the bargain, then he/she has no right to complain. That said, who is the most likely person to take advantage of this program? Someone who has to pay for the software on his/her own and does not have the financial means to do so. If that person is able to come up with $100 each month, great. But what if something happens down the road, and that person cannot come up with the needed money for, say, 6 months? Losing what you’ve paid in so far is just another financial setback. If GW Micro is really trying to empower the end user, then what you pay in should not be completely lost if a temporary financial difficulty (that lasts longer than the three-month grace period) arises.

2. Along the lines of my previous point: This program is going to appeal to people who might not otherwise be able to afford it. Folks might sign up for it, fully intending to pay the $100 cash each month, but find that even that is too much. So they start charging the payments which means they are paying even more for the software.
3. The hassle-factor. Not only do you have to pay each month, you have to get a new license number each month.
   

   
   When you launch an LTO copy of Window-Eyes, you will hear the number of days remaining for the current license number, starting at 30. The number will go down each consecutive day (29 days remaining, 28 days remaining, etc.). If Window-Eyes says 0 days remaining, that means your license number will expire within 24 hours. You will need to purchase and activate a new license number to avoid having your leased copy of Window-Eyes turn into a 30 minute demo.

4. I believe that if you own a full copy of Window-Eyes Professional, you are within the license agreement to install that copy on multiple machines (such as your desktop and laptop computers) as long as you are the only user. This is not quite the case in the LTO version, apparently. From the FAQ:
   

   Q. Can I install and activate my LTO copy of Window-Eyes on multiple machines?
   

   A. You can install an LTO copy of Window-Eyes on as many machines as necessary, but you can only activate a license number on one machine at a time—remember, an LTO copy of Window-Eyes is still a 30-minute-per-session demo until the license number has been activated. In other words, in order to use an LTO copy of Window-Eyes on multiple machines, you would need to return the license number activation on the first machine before activating it on the second machine. When you return a license number authorization, your LTO copy of Window-Eyes will revert to a 30-minute-per-session demo. To re-activate the LTO copy of Window-Eyes on the first machine, the license number authorization would need to be returned from the second machine, and re-authorized on the first machine.
   

Again, I’m still trying to figure out exactly how I feel about this whole thing. I feel a twinge of… I dunno… bad juju. Or maybe what I’m feeling is much more earthly than that, like other rent-to-own/lease-to-own deals that are marketed to people who cannot afford the product in question, and that in the end make the product more expensive than it would be had the buyer found some other means to finance the purchase.

I’m curious about what others think.
—jd

(original announcement via Gil at the NHBlind-Talk listserv)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 27th, 2005 at 12:14 am and is filed under Window-Eyes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.