Please read the article I referenced. Most of their gripes are also issues found in Windows. Also OP's article is clearly written from a constructive criticism point of view that I appreciate. Keeping software accessible is hard work and proprietary software is not some magic bullet.

I think you are taking this all out of context hence why I told you to get off your high horse. Apparently you decided to climb onto an even higher horse instead. You are not echoing anything but your rather alarmist perspective. See below for excerpts about Windows accessability.

"A concrete example of a product that simply cannot be used by the blind, but which is an integral security component used in employment situations, is Microsoft's BitLocker software, which provides full disk encryption. BitLocker requires the user to enter a PIN (personal identification number) before the full Windows operating system is started. While competing full-disk encryption programs have offered the ability to generate an audible tone that can be used to alert the blind user that information needs to be entered, BitLocker offers no such indication. Despite years of repeated entreaties by blind people for Microsoft to fix this problem, we have yet to see a version of BitLocker that addresses this issue. A blind employee who is required to use a computer with Microsoft BitLocker installed will be unable to turn the computer on and get it running—not to mention use it.

Microsoft SharePoint, a program used by many institutions (many of which employ the blind), is not fully accessible to the blind. SharePoint has been found to be so frustrating for the nonvisual user that a third-party vendor believes that it can sell an add-on solution to large enterprises (e.g., state or federal agencies) that costs as much as $12,000 for a single user license. If Microsoft's accessibility effort were working, a product that is as widely used as SharePoint would already be as convenient and effective for the nonvisual user as it is for everyone else.

There does not appear to be any user-experience research being conducted by Microsoft into improving efficiency for keyboard-only users, including the blind. This has already had a negative impact on keyboard-only users of the spell checker in Word 2013, which no longer provides accelerator keys to speed up the selection of options when spelling errors are detected.

Microsoft struggles to implement an API (application program interface) which makes it easier for screen-access software to get information about application states, messages, and controls. Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) and User Interface Automation (UIA), two examples of existing accessibility APIs, have existed within the Windows operating system for many years, but they have apparently not done much to solve the accessibility problem. While I applaud the fact that Microsoft has worked hard to ensure that Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 have worked with updated releases of screen-access software on the day they were released to the public, it must also be recognized that, in order for this to have happened, the screen-access software vendors (very small companies in relation to Microsoft) had to devote considerable resources to make this happen. It would be better if these relatively small companies could spend more time and effort coming up with innovations that improve the efficiency and productivity of blind users of their software.

Unlike its main competitors on desktop and mobile platforms, Microsoft has failed to provide built-in support for refreshable Braille displays to be connected to and used on its various platforms. This is particularly vexing for users who are both deaf and blind for whom refreshable Braille displays are the only way to interact with computer software. The Apple Macintosh and the Apple iPhone support a variety of refreshable Braille displays without requiring the customer to install device-specific drivers, and these products entered the market well after Microsoft began working on accessibility.

The maintenance, setup, and recovery of Microsoft Windows continue to be inaccessible to the blind. Consequently, there is an added cost in time and/or money to the blind user, who has to bring in (and often pay for) sighted assistance to install, upgrade, or repair a Windows system. This situation is unacceptable—especially given the fact that Apple OS X and iOS operating systems incorporate accessibility tools that enable the blind computer user to perform maintenance, upgrade, and recovery tasks without sighted assistance. Moreover, this problem curtails the ability of the blind to accept Windows system support jobs in information technology."