Companies are tied to particular computer manufacturers and must pay for bad tailor-made software that can often be bought for a small fraction of the price off the shelf.
After that, customers find themselves locked into years of expensive software purchases, tailor-made for each customer by the hardware maker or its associates.
Some of the new offerings: free software that can tailor the text on any Web site to your personal visual needs, and a cellphone that can snap photos of text -- like signs and restaurant menus -- and read it back to you.