Whether driven by law or conscience, making products friendlier to people with disabilities is smart business.

That is the view taken by Microsoft Corp., and if the company continues to deliver as promised, its example will be worth emulating.

Technology was touted as the great equalizer for people with disabilities some 20 years ago, but in the early to mid 1990s, ground became a bit shaky. As industry moved from familiar, text-based computing environments to the graphical user interface world of Windows, many people with disabilities began losing their jobs.

As disability rights groups, with significant purchasing power of government agencies behind them, pressed Microsoft to release information that would enable assistive technology developers to bridge the gap for users with disabilities, a growing awareness and company philosophy emerged that is now intrinsic to product development.

A number of accessibility features are built into Microsoft products, and the company works collaboratively with vendors of assistive technology, keeping them apprised of changes rather than an after-the-fact scramble to make products accessible.

The team, according to Madelyn Bryant McIntire, Microsoft's accessibility director, includes about 40 employees on the Redmond, Wash., campus as well as several others in Europe. Some of those employees have disabilities, although McIntire resists categorizing any employee based on group identification.

What constitutes accessibility in an operating system or software application? Here are a few examples:

• Changing colors of foreground or background, changing font style or character can make the difference between seeing and not seeing what's on the screen for someone with a visual impairment.

• A screen reader to verbalize what is on the screen or software that translates screen content into Braille spells accessibility for someone who is blind.

• Keyboards with slower or altered response time can create a friendlier environment for someone with limited or impaired hand function.

• Voice recognition products make it possible for customers with mobility impairments to create documents with no hand motion.

• Customers with cognitive disabilities - dyslexia, attention deficit, mental retardation - can accomplish more with varying combinations of visual and oral output and the ability to customize the look and sound of feedback.

For a variety of reasons, many people with disabilities need keyboard alternatives to mouse manipulation. The list goes on.

While some accessibility features are built into Microsoft's products, others are made possible by collaboration with vendors specializing in the development of assistive technology. What is commendable - and where customers with disabilities are hitching their trust for staying in the technology game - is in the company's attitude toward what McIntire calls "intrinsic accessibility."

As baby boomers age, the number of age-related disabilities will increase. Hearing loss, vision loss, cognitive impairments and mobility impairments caused by arthritis and other age-related conditions translate as increased need for computing accessibility.

Infants born prematurely and/or with disabilities who would once have perished are surviving and requiring accessible educational products.

With changing demographics, McIntire maintains, it only makes sense to take the approach that accessibility is built into products from the ground up. So far, Microsoft has delivered.

With the launch of a new operating system planned soon, Microsoft's adherence to intrinsic accessibility holds the future employment and education opportunities for millions with disabilities in the balance.

Contact Deborah Kendrick by phone: 673-4474; fax: 321-6430; or e-mail: dkkendrick@earthlink.net.