Adobe, Apple, Microsoft, et. al. please take note that the US Dollar price for your product multiplied at the current exchange rate, plus 15% value added tax (UK sales tax at today’s rate) is a lot less than the price you charge us for your software.
For example:
- The Apple Snow Leopard 10.6 update announced today is $29 in the US or £17.67 at the current exchange rate, plus 15% VAT bringing it to just over £20. But Apple thinks the UK consumer can stump up an extra 20% and pay £25. It may only be a fiver but the same principle applies across the entire product range.
- Microsoft’s Windows 7 Ultimate Edition Upgrade (there will now be an upgrade version of Windows 7 in Europe) costs $219 (which works out at £133.48). Add the sales tax and we’re up to just over £150 but Microsoft wants UK customers to pay £199!
A 20-25% uplift is pretty bad (and the VAT will be back to at least 17.5% at the end of January 2010) but Apple and Microsoft are clearly not pushing this as far as they can… let’s look at what Adobe charges:
- Adobe Photoshop CS4 is $699 in the States (which is £373.03, or £428.98 if we include the VAT) but, get this, Adobe charges us £615.25 – that’s almost a 45% premium… it’s a good job they’re offering free shipping at the moment if I spend more than £350.
Just to be clear, I didn’t deliberately pick the most expensive products to make software vendors look bad. These are the latest operating system releases from Apple/Microsoft and probably Adobe’s best-known product. No wonder the UK is the third-most expensive country in the world.
Leave a Reply