I don't believe that Vispero is actively planning on phasing out SMA purchases because the home annual licenses are currently only available for personal use. Many users continue to rely on the JAWS Professional license which continues to offer SMA options.

As of now Vispero hasn't announced specific discounts on specific products for the virtual conventions but they have indicated that such discounts will be available for virtual attendees. Because specifics have not been announced all we can do at this point is speculate on what may be offered. If it's going to be like last year's offerings there were discounts on home annual licenses. If memory serves you could even get a 50% discount if you attended Eric Damery's session. My guess is that similar offerings will be made available for this year's conventions but I admit this is just speculation.

David Goldfield,
Blindness Assistive Technology Specialist
JAWS Certified, 2019

WWW.DavidGoldfield.org

Normally, Vispero only offers special discounts to attendees at the ACB and NFB national conventions.  However, because both organizations will be holding their respective conventions entirely online this summer due to Corona virus restrictions and health concerns, it is unclear how Vispero would offer special discounts to convention participants, if they offer any discounts at all.  Almost nobody purchases JAWS outright any longer because it is far more cost effective to purchase a one-year license for only $90.  I doubt that Vispero would offer discounts on JAWS SMA's because they want to phase them out and gradually migrate all JAWS users to the one-year license arrangement, which would be more profitable for them over the long run.  Maybe as a gesture of good will to help out the thousands of blind consumers who are stuggling financially during the health crisis, Vispero will extend the free trial period for JAWS beyond June 30.

Gerald

On 6/3/2020 6:30 AM, Dean Martineau wrote:

I’m curious if one can find any announcements of specials that Freedom Scientific is offering this summer.  They usually do offer some sort of discount, and I have seen somewhere plans to do so, but the last FSCast didn’t reveal them.