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Exchange Rates Spell High Prices for Windows 7 In the EU
CWmike writes "European customers will pay up to twice as much for Windows 7 compared with US users, even though the new operating system will ship without a browser in Europe. Some of the money Microsoft stands to make on the European editions of Windows 7 comes from the weak dollar. Last week, for instance, the dollar fell against the euro the most in a month, hitting $1.41 per euro. For example, Windows 7 Professional, the key retail edition for businesses, will sport a price tag of 285 euros, or $400.60, and £189.99, or $313.84, at Saturday's exchange rate. In other words, EU customers will pay twice the $199.99 U.S. price; U.K. buyers will pay 57% more. And depending on your view on bundling IE, Europe's customers will be paying more for less, with Microsoft's decision to yank IE8 from Windows 7 in an effort to head off EU antitrust regulators, who may still force the company to take more drastic measures."
If the Euro has more buying power than the dollar (lets say it's double for ease of math), wouldn't the price of something be $10 in the US and €5 in Europe?
... albeit some simple assembly required. With IE 8 separated it can be still easily added ... on the other hand, you could also think about not having to pay for bloatware. Alas, the increased costs here in Europe for Win7 will make even more companies think about the future upgrade path: it might not be Windows anymore.
Interestingly enough, when the dollar was strong against the Euro (e.g. 1 Euro = 0.8 US$), we did not have the reverse effect. At that time in Europe, Prices of goods from the US were just increased.
Oh well, we'll just leech it from http://thepiratebay.org/
Delta-Mike November Bravo Tango
There are other options these days.
I think you might have that a bit backwards. If .eu says that Microsoft isn't playing by their rules, and the prices go all askew, competitors will eat MS's market in that region. There's already been many stories about various European governmental entities using various Linux distros as a Windows replacement. It'd be great to have alternatives to Windows become the standard operating platform across an entire 1st world country.
However, at this stage piracy will still keep Windows in the dominant user position.
Usually the conversion rate is 1 USD is 1 Euro. For example, look at the prices for video games. A $60 game consts 60 euros. Even Valve applies this conversion rate in Steam, and Apple for their store. It's extra income for the company. And most customers don't mind that much.
Of course there are some companies that want even more, for example the Rockband game in europe was 250% the price compared to the US retail price. EA said this was due to higher shipping rates (it's not like the other plasic toys from China cost that much).
But I guess that Microsoft went the same way (or as a retaliation to the fines they got), because they don't even do the $1=1 euro conversion. I bet they Blame it on localization. I'm sure that costs 85 euro per copy.
There's a fair chance this will hurt MS, because their TCO just went up a lot.
Yea, what's this about American cars? I mean not even Americans are buying them :D
If you don't like the price, then don't buy it.
Don't pirate it either. Use something else.
But don't pirate it. If you do, you're doing what Microsoft considers "the next best thing" - ignoring alternatives. Alternatives scare the piss out of Microsoft. Back when Microsoft didn't have a stranglehold on the market, people were happy enough pirating 95 and 98, while ignoring things like BeOS and OS/2 (both competitively priced and more powerful) and it suited Microsoft and Bill Gates just fine.^1 Both OS/2 and BeOS are gone from the market because of piracy's market distortion.
Hopefully Windows 7 will come with an even more strict WGA and OGA to extract more pain from consumers. Maybe they'll wake up.
--
BMO
1. Of course, Microsoft executives prefer that people buy, but theft can build market share more quickly, as company co-founder and Chairman Bill Gates acknowledged in an unguarded moment in 1998.
"Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though," Gates told an audience at the University of Washington. "And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade." http://articles.latimes.com/2006/apr/09/business/fi-micropiracy9
In IT and a few other industries they dont bother with complicated things like exchange rates so :
$199 == £199 == â199
the result of this is that we get really ripped off on some products.
How does that even work? If the USD is low, shouldn't that make american products cheaper?
The usual answer is "customers want a stable price for software, we don't bother tracking the exchange rate on a day by day basis." In the EU they have fixed prices in euros, pounds whatever.
A weak dollar means the nominal dollar price is higher. They could price lower but they are not in the business of selling at cost+n%, they are business of pricing at whatever the local market will bear. That doesn't change much with the exchange rate.
A neighbour asked if I would build him a grunty machine to do video production and as a general use computer. He told me he had heard Vista was a nightmare, he needed a machine now, and he wasn't sure what he should do.
I told him that XP probably wouldn't 'get the juice' out of the current generation of processors properly and that windows 7 won't be out for a while and would he like to give Ubuntu (studio) a go. I told him he would at least save on the price of a copy of windows and he might be able to buy some other gear. As suggested by a slashdotter here I let him know that there would probably be problems as any computer has but we can work through any issues that arise, so far all has gone well.
I was pleasantly surprised by the latest Ubuntu Studio Jaunty release. His video camera and mobile phone worked with it immediately, the webcam on the ASUS monitor works well with skype. We setup Amarok for his music collection. I showed him how to install more software, told him there were other video programs aside for Kino but to give this one a go, now he is using it to make dvd's of his fishing trips.
My neighbour is a fireman, and is quite humble about his proficiency as a computer user. I told him the machine is NOT windows or a mac but he is using the machine with confidence blowing away any pre-conceptions in my mind of Linux usability. He is about as far away from being a Linux geek as anyone can be and keeping the purchase price of windows, to him, meant he could afford a kick ass logitech speaker setup and most of the purchase price of a new HP printer. When I asked him a few days ago about how the new computer was going his exact word were:
"I'm lovin' it"
Linux may not be ready for the desktop, but I think it's fast becoming the new value proposition.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Microsoft actually wants me to leech this off of BitTorrent. There's no other explanation.
I am confused. Where does this feeling of entitlement to someones product come from? If you don't agree with their pricing for Windows 7, you are free to use the older version if you have it or switch to any of the many different free operating systems available.
If there are significant customs and shipping fees, wouldn't they just manufacture and package the EU editions in the EU?
"pissing off a big corporation.. Europe, get ready to pay back the massive fines microsoft was forced to pay by European legislators. Bend over and take it."
An interesting post, however it has one slight flaw...You appear to be suggesting that the reason for the high price is the recent fine that was imposed on M$. It isn't. M$ has always ignored actual currency exchange rates and fixed its prices at a rate that is most favourable to itself. This is merely business as usual for M$.
The encryption thing is bullshit. People aren't using their computers as typing machines any more. They're also using them as accounting machines and online shopping machines.
Which means that personal, financial information is getting written out to the storage medium. Whether accidentally or purposely saved, or unintentionally cached.
IOW, every machine needs to have some basic encryption functionality by default, just to mitigate the risk of thieves getting access to people's bank accounts when they steal their crappy old computers (and in this case, the older, the worse, because that means more time for you to use your computer for financial transaction or managing with actual account numbers.
Apple puts encryption on every desktop (not on by default, but nevertheless present). Why can't Microsoft?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Why subsidize Linux forums? I'd prefer they subsidize BSD forums. (See the point? Why should the govt subsidize one over the other?) I don't want the govt to pick 'the winner' in OS.
"You really think that MS would be the one hurting if the EU prevented the sale of Microsoft software? How naive are you? Such a ban would last all of 15 minutes before panicked EU politicos apologized profusely, lifted the ban and resigned."
Hmmm
It would appear that you are the naive one. Expecting a politician to admit to, apologise for and resign over a mistake is stretching the bounds of credibility too far.
Heh. Interestingly they seem to do this only for currencies that have higher current value than the Dollar.. I dare them to make $199 to INR 199 :)
$1 is roughly INR 50
... and I shall strike upon thee with great vegeance, furious anger and a slightly positive karma.
Pirating Windows just helps Microsoft
I think the best thing that could happen to Linux and other alternative operating systems would be if Microsoft made it absolutely impossible to pirate Windows. It would be very interesting to see the result of that.
(I'd like to see the same thing happen with Photoshop too. I have a feeling Gimp development would get quite a boost as a result. So many people use Photoshop over alternatives just because it's so easy to get a pirate copy.)
They'd probably get sued for more 'bundling.' You're free to google for better alternatives, like TrueCrypt.
It's 2009 on the Internet. Nobody here is bothered by the use of the word "fuck". But we object to your incorrect use of "could really give a fuck". It's "couldn't really give a fuck". Honestly. What is it with Americans and their blindspot for this phrase? How much sense does it make to say "I could care less" in a dismissive way? You're saying that you do care with this phrase when what you're trying to say is that you don't: i.e. that you couldn't care less. HTH :)
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Simple:
How do you think they'll make pay the EU for the fines? By making windows more expensive!
Occam's razor does apply here.
Easy peasy.
Cheers,
The US dollar is cheap, and getting cheaper. Therefor, Windows over in Europe ought to be cheaper than it would have been, not more expensive.
This is my sig.
$199 == [A^]£199 == [a^]199
I take it the "A circumflex" is a shorthand for the empty string, and "a circumflex" is a shorthand for the Euro sign?
I take it utf-8 is still broken on slashdot?
To be completely fair, many EU countries has a much higher VAT (or sale tax) than the USA, and the USA price usually does not include it, while the "European" price does. Yet, even in the most dramatic case, like Denmark or Italy, where VAT is 25% and 20% respectively, it is still only a small percentage than the difference.
this post contain no useful information, no need to mod it down
Because it affects us?
Also, surely one could be an economics nerd.
Dodge is far from unknown in Europe. Just unpopular.
When the gas prices went up to 4 dollars for a gallon (0.70 Euros for a liter) I told some dude in California that I hadn't seen gas that cheap since 1982 in Europe.
Having said that, Dodge and most other American car companies make cars that guzzle gas, are too damn big and impractical for the streets of Amsterdam, Rome, Paris or Prague, have a complete inability to corner and generally are quite ugly.
Well, obviously it's far too difficult for /. to support the pound symbol properly. Or the euro symbol.
Or indeed any symbol not widely used in the US.