Microsoft Raises UK Prices By a Third and Can't Rule Out Future Hikes

New submitter DerekduPreez writes "Microsoft has revealed that it will increase volume licencing prices in the UK by an average of 29 percent to adjust for the 'sustained currency differences between European countries'. UK businesses have until 1st July to place their orders under the current prices before the changes take effect. Microsoft claims that because of sustained differences between the British Pound and the Euro, price spikes are necessary to maintain consistency across the region. Microsoft also confirmed that it could not rule out future increases, as it will continue to monitor currency movements and may make further adjustments if there are large fluctuations."

Comments

The British are proud of their Pound

[Anonymous Coward]

They even advertise "no Euros" as an advantage to staying in the country 2012. It's a pity they can't play with the other kids.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Spad]

It's hardly our fault that the Euro has been going down the pan faster than the Pound; we get screwed enough when it comes to the price of goods without adding to it voluntarily.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[aliquis]

Isn't the issue the other way around?

The pound down more than the euro and hence price increases in pound?

You've got massive QE and hence weak pound.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Dunbal]

Today's exchange rate: 1 Euro = 1.31 US dollars. Pretty much where it has always been. Certainly it's off its all time highs. Certainly it's not at its all time lows. But yes, let's play the popular press's game of "The Euro is Dying!".

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[jo_ham]

I really wish we could either shit or get off the pot.

We're not all crazy Europhobic trying to claim that "Brussels" dictating how curved a banana has to be if you plan to sell it, or other ridiculous nonsense. It's like the Tories (and parties like UKIP) want all of the benefits to the UK of close european trade, but don't want to make any of the concessions (like standardising on a currency). Just makes it awkward.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft's kicking the Poms 'cos us Aussies are about to expose them as price-gougers.
http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/30/australian-price-gouging-inquiry-targets-apple-microsoft-and-others/

They have to make up the difference somewhere, so it's the pasty boys who'll be dusting the moths out of their wallets for a change.

I'm good with that.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[CriticalAnalysis]

Exactly this. Euro is pretty much where it has always been. Pound is losing its value. Microsoft has every right to do it. Compared to Google they just have to do it openly - even Google has been steadily rising their advertising for the UK because of differences in currency values. They just do it silently behind the scenes.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[crazyjj]

I don't think it's the Euro that's the problem. Sounds like it's the pound. Looks like the U.S. dollar has been growing against the pound pretty consistently in recent months.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[TheMathemagician]

Yes that seems fair since the pound has declined by 29% against the Euro over the past year ... except ... that it's actually risen by 10% ... but hey why let facts get in the way of some price gouging. We should get a discount as they don't have to translate all the EULAs into foreign languages! And to the idiots advocating Britain joining the Euro ... do you live in a cave? There's a strong possibility that the Euro will disintegrate imminently.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[aliquis]

This is written in Swedish but can easily be translated with Google translate:
http://www.borstjanaren.se/borst/borstArticleDetails/article_id/8816

Borrowed 500 billion £.
Added 325 billion £Âto the banking system.
An interest rate around 0.5% for three years.

GDP @Â1500 billion £Âand according to that article / blog post the £Âis down 30%.

Guess why Microsoft increase the prices (or why the £Âis down to begin with.)

GBP/SEK, click [3 år]:
https://www.avanza.se/aza/aktieroptioner/indikatorer/indikator.jsp?orderbookId=108703&timeframe=3year

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Dunbal]

the U.S. dollar has been growing against the pound

Not sure what you mean by growing, I see a weakening US dollar. But we all know that - the Fed keeps printing them, how can the US dollar not get weaker? And your graph supports this. So if the US dollar gets weaker the answer is to charge more pounds? This is just a cash grab by Microsoft with some currency exchange gloss to hide the fact that they're being greedy suckers, they see more value in holding pounds than dollars, and hardly anyone bothers to take 30 secs to understand exchange rates properly.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[PremiumCarrion]

The graph you linked shows the opposite of that.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Dunbal]

There's a strong possibility that the Euro will disintegrate imminently.

There is the absolute certainty that all currencies will disintegrate eventually. However I'm not so sure which will go first, the Euro or the US dollar. Europe's biggest problem is the non-uniformity of its financial policies but on the other hand it's the greatest safeguard. The US, on the other hand, is 100% aligned and on board to sink its own currency and dissent is not even talked about let alone permitted.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Anonymous Coward]

And it's still way down over the last 5 years. But hey, don't let facts get in the way.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Anonymous Coward]

If dissent is not permitted, how long do you think it will be before the secret police show up to take you away?

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Anonymous Coward]

We're not all crazy Europhobic trying to claim that "Brussels" dictating how curved a banana has to be if you plan to sell it, or other ridiculous nonsense.

The vast majority of us are though.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[gbjbaanb]

You don't need a common currency to have free trade - the Scandinavian countries do it quite happily at the moment.

Nor do you need an European Parliament, and Commission, to decide laws affecting each country. (note: we still don't have valid trade laws that promote common trading - VAT is still all over the place in each country for example). And note that the EC still hasn't had its accounts signed off - and the gravy train of expenses and other payments probably means we will never get open accountability from them.

Many eurosceptics want trade and integration with the rest of Europe, its just that they do not want the remarkably dodgy political establishment that we currently have there.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[DrgnDancer]

Umm. Yeah... The US dollar is currently trading at about 1:1.6 with the Pound, well stronger than the 1:2 that it had been for quite a while. It's also about 1:1.3 against the Euro, well off the 1:1.6 that it had been. The Dollar has been strengthening the last year or so. that's not completely a good thing (it hurts our exports), but it's definitely a true thing. For all it's current weaknesses, the US economy is considered relatively strong vs Europe and good chunks of Asia right now.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Dunbal]

You need $1.61 to buy a pound today, when yesterday you needed $1.55 to buy the same pound. That is a weakening dollar (or a strengthening pound) and not the opposite.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Dunbal]

But his post is a shining example of how people simply refuse to understand exchange rates.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Anonymous Coward]

"People" includes Microsoft if this article is anything to go by.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[PerfectionLost]

Are you calling us a backwards nation?!?!?!

(You are right though. I can't believe those guys think its the dollar getting stronger. They must be Republicans.)

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Dunbal]

No, Microsoft is being smart and stocking up on pounds, as a hedge against an even weaker dollar in the future.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[digitig]

Today's exchange rate: 1 Euro = 1.31 US dollars. Pretty much where it has always been.

What that tells the rest of us is that the US$ has problems too.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[marcosdumay]

That's the nicest thing about Google's business model. They don't have to raise their prices, as the prices are "automaticaly" set by their clients on bids.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[digitig]

And note that the EC still hasn't had its accounts signed off - and the gravy train of expenses and other payments probably means we will never get open accountability from them.

A common cry of the Eurosceptics -- for some reason missing out the fact that most UK government departments haven't had their accounts signed off in many years either, and the gravy train of expenses and other payments probably means we will never get open accountability from them. But hey, at least it's honest-to-goodness British corruption, not like that nasty foreign sort, eh?

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[jalopezp]

The pound sterling may be doing worse than it ever has, but it's certainly faring better than the euro. View the last year's trend from yahoo!

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[LifesABeach]

I find it curious that U.K. Spikes Pirate Bay, and Microsoft raises prices. Coincidence? I think not.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure where you got the $1.55; this chart seems to support the strengthening dollar argument.

https://www.google.com/finance?hl=en&biw=1680&bih=963&q=CURRENCY:GBPUSD

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Xest]

"Nor do you need an European Parliament, and Commission, to decide laws affecting each country."

That's because it's not just about free trade, but utilising Europe's combined resources to make Europe more prosperous as a whole - bringing the poorer Eastern European nations up to the standards of Western Europe and also making sure Europeans share some bare minimum sets of rights. This in itself has an effect on free trade though, as free trade isn't a good thing if one country in the free trade group has no laws on slave Labour and so can jack all the manufacturing business from the others.

"VAT is still all over the place in each country for example"

What do you mean all over the place? there are restrictions on how high and high low it can be so it's only "all over the place" within a fairly narrow boundary of values. I'm not really sure what you're arguing for either, on one hand you seem to think it's bad Europe takes power away from individual nations, yet here you seem to also think it's bad that countries have the freedom to at least change VAT to some extent? It's like you're contradicting your own argument for the sake of having a pop at the EU.

"Many eurosceptics want trade and integration with the rest of Europe"

They don't want integration, they just want to be able to exploit it where it suits them, and ignore it when it doesn't. The problem is that's not a sound basis for a two way relationship and ultimately most Eurosceptic viewpoints tend to boil down to outright xenophobia. UKIP comes up with some good ideas, but the more you watch them, the more you read their policies, the more you realise they're really no that much different to the BNP, they're just only slightly less overtly racist but are certainly at least just as fascist. Ironically they're also the ones who have been most guilty of corruption in terms of stealing expenses and so forth.

Some of the UK's Tories are less xenophobic, but their intentions are no more moral, their arguments come down to the fact they're just demanding more power for themselves, not for a care for the country and the people in it - it's no suprise there is a strong correlation between the Tories that are anti-EU and the Tories that support the undemocratic first past the post system that gives parties like the Tories and Labour grossly more power than the electorate voted them to have. The number of eurosceptics whose position is genuinely based on rationality and a care for the British population rather than a lust for greater power or irrational xenophobia is probably less than 10 out of 650 MPs.

Whilst the European Parliament and Commission is without a doubt nowhere near perfect and has many problems, I find it rather odd when Eurosceptics, complain about corruption as a reason for wanting to get out. Britain is after all the country that has for the last few years seen scandal after scandal after scandal, and not just small ones - we're referring to those that hit right at the heart of democracy, whether it's expenses, peerages for sale, cash for votes, or phone hacking at every level of British society, to Jeremy Hunt not fulfilling his legal obligation to be impartial. There's a good reason Murdoch is himself a Eurosceptic and pushes that agenda in his British media - because he recognises that it's the biggest threat to his immensly corrupt stranglehold on the British establishment.

Europe may well be corrupt, but compared to our government? It's still far better.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Anonymous Coward]

Over the long term (pre-2008 versus post-2008), the US dollar has gotten stronger with respect to the British Pound, going from about 2 US dollars per British pound to "only" 1.5 to 1.6. That's mostly due to people fleeing other currencies for the "safe" haven of US dollars during the financial crisis of 2008-2009. But more recently (since the start of 2012), the US dollar has been getting weaker, albeit at a smaller magnitude. More like 1.6 instead of 1.5, but that's within the typical variation seen since 2008, so it's not much of a trend yet. If it starts climbing back up towards 1.8 or 2.0, then things will start to approach where they were at before 2008.

It all depends on the time sample taken. This graph kind of says it all for the recent history. If you want to see the older history there are some good links on that page.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[CohibaVancouver]

All socialism fails

Correct, however you need to head to the library and do some reading on what socialism actually is (unless the library is too 'socialist' for you).

Europe, Canada etc. are not socialist nations. Do they have social programs for their citizens? Yes. However, socialism is defined as state ownership of enterprises. A good example of a socialst nation is Cuba - The state owns all means of production. Cuba is failing, which is why they are moving away from socialism.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Archangel Michael]

If the dollar is getting weaker, then that wouldn't bode well for Obama, don't you think? Of course, when the dollar goes up, it is bad, when the dollar goes down it is bad ... so ... ;)

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Archangel Michael]

You mean like how the US owns a chunk of GM?

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[afidel]

Exactly, look at that chart for the 5 year horizon and you see the Pound losing about 16% against the Euro, 19% against the US Dollar, 35% against the Australian Dollar and a whopping 46% against the Yen!

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Anonymous Coward]

And note that the EC still hasn't had its accounts signed off - and the gravy train of expenses and other payments probably means we will never get open accountability from them.

A common cry of the Eurosceptics -- for some reason missing out the fact that most UK government departments haven't had their accounts signed off in many years either, and the gravy train of expenses and other payments probably means we will never get open accountability from them. But hey, at least it's honest-to-goodness British corruption, not like that nasty foreign sort, eh?

Until the UK Government moves to a full modern accounting standard rather than cash accounting, it will never be possible to sign-off the accounts in any detail. This is a known problem and is being addressed.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Anonymous Coward]

Whilst the European Parliament and Commission is without a doubt nowhere near perfect and has many problems, I find it rather odd when Eurosceptics, complain about corruption as a reason for wanting to get out. Britain is after all the country that has for the last few years seen scandal after scandal after scandal, and not just small ones - we're referring to those that hit right at the heart of democracy, whether it's expenses, peerages for sale, cash for votes, or phone hacking at every level of British society, to Jeremy Hunt not fulfilling his legal obligation to be impartial. There's a good reason Murdoch is himself a Eurosceptic and pushes that agenda in his British media - because he recognises that it's the biggest threat to his immensly corrupt stranglehold on the British establishment.

Europe may well be corrupt, but compared to our government? It's still far better.

The fact that these scandals can be exposed in Britain is a strength not a weakness as you imply. Now that they have been exposed action can be taken against them. I am not a Eurosceptic but these types of issues are known to exist in even greater amounts in France, Italy, Greece and other countries but are never exposed. We should be pushing for greater British-style transparency not more opaque bureaucracy in the EU.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

A year ago, one Euro was around 88 pence.
Now one Euro is somewhere around 81 pence. This is the same rate as during a temporary dip around 22 months ago. The last time the Euro was lower than that was in late summer 2008.

The Euro is going down against the Pound, not vice versa. There is less justification for this price hike than there has been at pretty much any time since late 2008.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Anonymous Coward]

It is redundant to start a post with "this". We assume if you clicked "Reply to This" that you are indeed replying to the preceding post.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[cryptolemur]

Europe's biggest problem is the non-uniformity of its financial policies but on the other hand it's the greatest safeguard.

The biggest problem in Europe is the absolute uniformity of it's financial policy to secure Germany's economy no matter what the price is for any other nation in the Europe.

That and the fact that they still -- against any evidence or sense -- think austerity can save an already contracting economy...

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Anonymous Coward]

The most vocal political leader speaking on the decline of the dollar is none other than the Republican Ron Paul.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Anonymous Coward]

Austerity is needed to stop the excessive borrowing and/or money printing Greece and other countries dallied with that got them into trouble in the first place. It can't be a true economic contraction because the money spent went to non-economic activity (no-work civil service appointments).

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[CohibaVancouver]

Europe has tons of socialism. The US has too much of it as well.

Europe, the USA, my country (Canada) have social programs, all to varying degrees. There's no such thing as "tons of socialism." You're either socialist (Cuba) or you're not. If you don't have mass state-owned enterprise you're not socialist.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[KhabaLox]

Today's exchange rate: 1 Euro = 1.31 US dollars. Pretty much where it has always been. Certainly it's off its all time highs. Certainly it's not at its all time lows. But yes, let's play the popular press's game of "The Euro is Dying!".

How do you look at that graph and conclude that the Euro has "pretty much ... always been" at $1.31? The 12 month hi is $1.48 and the 12 month low is $1.26. 10 years ago it was under $0.90. Over the past 5 years there are a lot of peaks and valleys, but the general trend is downward. The peak in July, 2008 was higher than the peak in Nov, 2009, which was higher than Apr, 2011, which is higher than anything since.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[DrgnDancer]

Since yesterday. I'm talking long term trends. You can't look at 24 hours and say the dollar is weakening. As little as a year ago it was more like $2 to the Pound. There were variations even then, but "in general" the dollar has been getting much stronger lately. Right now we're approximately where were against European currencies before the recession. For quite a while we were 25-50% lower than we were pre-recession.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Dishevel]

Read the comment you are replying to.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Anonymous Coward]

Just wait until China decides to unpin their currency, and OPEC decides to trade oil volume in yuan, rubles, or the currency "basket". The US has zero backing their currency (which is why Ron Paul keeps asking what Fort Knox contains other than maybe UOI notes), which is why when one gets a job where I live, people ask to be paid in gold bullion for their paycheck instead of dollars. It may be cumbersome buying/selling metal, but it beats waking up one morning to find zero access to a checking account, and no way to obtain basic food and drink other than begging. At least with gold and silver, commerce can go on.

Where I live, there are "gold consultants" who make big money from telling people where to stash their stuff, and how. For example, one leaves "mugging money" in an obvious place like a safe, while the majority of the stash gets put behind trim molding around a doorway, another stash gets buried 8-10 feet underground, far enough so metal detectors are not an issue, and another stash is buried a few miles away so if marauders have seized the house, there is still some source of funding.

The thing is, yes the US has a strong military, but a currency collapse would decimate that completely. If people realize they won't get paid, they are not going to put their lives on the line, unless the Russian mode of combat is adopted (with a special division to shoot people not fighting or attempting to retreat.) Contractors also will go onto better things the second they hear their pay may be an issue, so the private armies hired on won't be of much use when the dollar becomes worthless.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[arnodf]

I'm seeing lots of £ so I wonder which currency you're really referring to. Damn Slashdot encoding

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[arnodf]

that is an A with a hat followed by the pound sign. Somehow it shows as a pound now

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[alexander_686]

A weaker dollar

Helps exports, thus helps creating jobs in the export business. More true in manufacturing.

Hurts imports, thus helps create inflation. (People like to complain about Walmart importing cheap Chinese stuff, but, IIRC, without cheap imports the average middle to lower income American would be paying about 20% for the basic goods of life - based on the effect of reduced inflation for the past 20 years.)

Should hurt US Treasury Bond yields. Foreign buyers should be demanding higher yields because of the weakling dollar - but the dollar is the word's reserve currency. I sometimes feel like we are Wile E. Coyote in regards to ultra low bond prices.

As for Obama, the first effect has the most immediate effect, and so if the US dollar falls it should help him.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Anonymous Coward]

The Euro is fine.
It is Europe that is dying.
The US will die as well. All socialism fails.
--
Dell servers == Anal Rape.

What a fucking retard. Get a grip on reality.

PS, your mother was anally raped and should've aborted you with a steaming big dump.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[davester666]

Except it's an order of magnitude greater at the EU level...

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[pseudofrog]

Does owning a chunk of GM mean that the "the [US] owns all means of production"?

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[optimism]

"this" at the beginning of a post is shorthand for "I agree with the parent post", not "I am replying to the parent post". So, not redundant.

If you want it shorter, replace with "yes", or even shorter, "+1".

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Anne Thwacks]

You have fallen for the Murdock press, paid by the w^Hbankers.

(Assuming you, like me, live in the UK) Almost all the food we eat is imported - mostly from Europe.

We buy it in Pounds, and the Banks convert those Pounds to Euros to pay the producer, in exchange for which they take a miserly commission of 4%. Then we export something of equal value to pay for that food, and get paid in Euros, whihc those very same banks convert into Pounds, for another 4%.

Thusly, the banks have an 8% tax on our food, which you are proud to pay because

a) You have more money than sense,

b) You believe the Murdock Press

c) You understand the banks need to steal your money to fund the lavish lifestyle of the clowns that run them

and/or

d) You do not know when you are being ripped off (If you live in the UK, that is understandable, because it is probably "all the time" anyway)

Do not claim its cos you like having the Queen's head on your banknotes, - if we had Euros, they would have a picture of the queen on too.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[TheLink]

That's mostly due to people fleeing other currencies for the "safe" haven of US dollars during the financial crisis of 2008-2009.

Yeah I didn't really understand that bit.
1) A lot of the "exploding" stuff was in the USA.
2) The federal reserve was "printing" trillions of US dollars, and refusing to say where it was going. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aatlky_cH.tY ).

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Anne Thwacks]

when the dollar goes up, it is bad, when the dollar goes down it is bad

The Dollar is bad. Its that simple. In fact, Dollar comes from the Latin word "Dolor" which means "grief". Just get rid of them (giving them to me would be a good start).

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Anne Thwacks]

I think you have been listening to economists. There is any amount of academic research which shows that the more qualified an economist is, the less accurate his predictions.

Did the sinking of Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac destroy the Dollar?

The fact that one or two users of the Euro are bankrupt does not mean there is a problem with the Euro, any more than the fact that your car is out of petrol means Opec are in trouble.

This was actually a response to the parent, but slashdot servers seem to be hosting some kind of botnet at the moment, and there is no processing power left for me to navigate back.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Anonymous Coward]

Or just trying to get the Brits to pay for Nokia, Windows Azure, Skype etc.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[CycleMan]

4% each way? You really should switch to credit unions. I manage to get my money converted for a 1% fee.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[sociocapitalist]

Maybe I'm being stupid but maybe you could elucidate the perceived linkage between the two as I don't see it...?

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[ZiakII]

I find it curious that U.K. Spikes Pirate Bay [slashdot.org], and Microsoft raises prices. Coincidence? I think not.

How is this +4 Interesting? They are raising the price on volume licensing. Can anyone show me on the TPB where I can download a volume license? Actually let me use that same idea. ...ladies and gentlemen of this Slashdot Site, I have one final thing I want you to consider, this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about it; that does not make sense!

Why would a Wookiee, an 8-foot-tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of 2-foot-tall Ewoks? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this post? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense! Look at me. I'm a poster at Slashdot defending Microsoft , and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca! Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you're in the story moderating' and conjugatin' the Emancipation Proclamation, does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed site moderators, it does not make sense! If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must mark my post interesting.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[chrb]

The Euro is going down against the Pound, not vice versa.

EUR vs GBP 1992-2012. Whether it is up or down depends on the dates you measure from and to. Nobody knows what will happen in the future.

There is less justification for this price hike than there has been at pretty much any time since late 2008.

For the last few years the pounds has been down on the euro in contrast to the preceding decade. Most large corporations don't regularly change end-user prices to track currency variations, unless they are in the currency or oil/gas business. It is entirely possible that Microsoft was willing to absorb a lower profit margin in the UK relative to other countries for a few years, but now predict that the weaker pound is a long term trend for the next decade, and are resetting prices accordingly. It is also possible that the Microsoft accountants believe that the UK market is more willing to bear higher profit margins.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[LifesABeach]

Microsoft is run by Billionares. It is public record that Billionares will do what ever it takes to stay that way. And an accepted business rule taught to 4th year secondary students is that, "as supply goes down, prices go up." Wait till then, that lesson should make more sense.

As for Chebacca, a Wookiee has to eat, and Black Market prices for Ewok pelts is "out of this world." If you're interested, I may still know of someone who has an Slow Ewok Blanket for sale, it fits a Queen size bed.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[ZiakII]

The supply doesn't go down though, hence why when you download something its not stealing. You simply can not go and download a volume license. To me this is just a clear case of Occam's razor, that it is really just a price increase due to the British Pound.

Yea, but there's a reason for Ewok pelts being "out of the world" in pricing. Is simply Jawas have better pelts, and are quite easy to kill. Leaving a piece of a droid over a bear-trap. Presto unlimited Jawas!

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[aliquis]

True I see. Maybe the price has lagged since 2007-2008?

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[chrb]

The biggest problem in Europe is the absolute uniformity of it's financial policy to secure Germany's economy no matter what the price is for any other nation in the Europe.

What are you talking about? The German economy is one of the strongest in the world, without it the Euro would be in a much worse condition.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Anonymous Coward]

Cuba is failing, which is why they are moving away from socialism.

Right, Cuba is failing because of socialism and not the 50 year embargo. /s

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Anonymous Coward]

That is the utf-8 encoding for a pound sign

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Kjella]

Except that many parties and governments actually describe themselves as socialist. There's

(1) An economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production
(2) A political movement regarding redistribution of wealth.and universal services

True, the last one typically call themselves social democrats in the full form to separate themselves from the marxist/communist forms of socialism, but in practice you can refer to them as socialists. There are people that hate the latter form of socialism too, the US in general and the libertarians in particular, there's an abundance of them here. They think the only thing social programs are good for is to make people lazy, stupid and sucking on the government's teat, cut everything and the strong will become stronger and the weak will perish. Instead of feeding the starving to create another generation of starving, let them starve and that's the solution. All help is supposed to be based on charity (good luck), in reality it'll be for whatever desperate men, women and children will do to survive.

Of course on the other side you have the socialists that want to control and tax everything I do. For example here in Norway I pay a wealth tax, for no other reason than that I have money the government wants their cut, whether I've made any interest or not - but we do have capital gains tax too. And if I inherit money, the government will take a huge inheritance tax. They just take some of my family's money and put in back in the pool. Progressive tax rates means the more you earn, the less you get to keep of it. Everything is opposed to you accumulating more wealth than anyone else. And that doesn't cover the taxes if I do something the government doesn't approve of like drink beer. Too much of it is suffocating, you're treated like an eternal child, never to be trusted to make my own decisions.

For those of you who've seen Babylon 5, both sides are as fucked up as the Vorlons and the Shadows. One side all about order and discipline, the other about evolution and chaos. My ideal society is probably something like social liberalism, the freedom to do whatever you want with a safety net to keep you from hitting rock bottom. But in practical politics, well the labels get all funny...

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[umghhh]

well there is not one socialism at least there is no agreement on what it could be, hence statements like 'all socialism fails' are bound to be wrong one way or another. As for failing - compare child mortality rates indifferent countries you will see that Cuba is not an utter failure there at least if you compare it with its northern neighbour....

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[gtall]

You do realize that is a temporary measure, eh? What do you get out of making a mountain out of mole hill?

And if the U.S. hadn't stepped in tided GM over a rough spot, how many thousands of people would now be on the unemployment line? Last we heard, the U.S. auto industry is coming back and GM has been paying down their debt.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[zidium]

I think you have that graph exactly backwards. The GBP is doing substantially worse than the Euro.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Anonymous Coward]

Backwards is the right way - weaker currency is better for exporters and debtors. Strong currency is bad for most people and for trade balance.
OTOH, you guys drive on the wrong side of the road and are still infested with useless royals, so perhaps you are still a bit backward.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Anonymous Coward]

Cuba is 'failing' because of the US blockade.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Panoptes]

The dollar derives from 'taler', an abbreviation of the name of the place in Germany where silver was mined in the sixteenth century. Shakespeare plays on the words 'dolour' and 'dollar' in The Tempest.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Anonymous Coward]

even if it was, it's usually like about 1p. Not sure which orifice they pulled 30% from. Presumably the same one they pull their operating systems from.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous Coward likes this.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when does socialism have to be all-or-nothing? Moreover, you could make the case that the US "owns" about a third of the means of production, because that's the going tax rate on corporate profits.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[manu0601]

A good example of a socialst nation is Cuba - The state owns all means of production. Cuba is failing

One could argue that Cuba is doing extremely well for a nation that has been under embargo for 50 years. The question becomes acute when you compare them to other caraibean countries that enjoy free market. I am not convinced Cuba's socialism flavour is a panacea, but I am not convinced either that it is the cause of their problems.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Anonymous Coward]

"this" at the beginning of a post is shorthand for "I agree with the parent post", not "I am replying to the parent post". So, not redundant.

If you want it shorter, replace with "yes", or even shorter, "+1".

+1 meh.....Google shill.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Patch86]

Closing off a major channel for pirate copies of Windows, at the same time as raising the price for legitimate copies of Windows. To paraphrase Bill Gates, the biggest competitor to Windows is pirated Windows.

Complete nonsense, I think, but that's what the GP was insinuating.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[dkf]

The fact that these scandals can be exposed in Britain is a strength not a weakness as you imply. Now that they have been exposed action can be taken against them. I am not a Eurosceptic but these types of issues are known to exist in even greater amounts in France, Italy, Greece and other countries but are never exposed. We should be pushing for greater British-style transparency not more opaque bureaucracy in the EU.

That's one of the very few good things to come out of this, that it has become clear that there are still some honest (or at least mostly-honest) people about and they care about cleaning the cesspit that yawned under too much public life.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Anonymous Coward]

It is literally impossible for the state to own all means of production. I don't mean destined to fail. I mean impossible. Some dictionary definitions of socialism have no resemblance to any real world governments that are socialist. Entering "socialism" into a google search gives results that disprove your assertion in less than one minute of reading time assuming remedial capacity. Real national health care is socialism that is successful.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Xest]

I agree some European countries are worse than others (i.e. Italy and France) but others are far better (i.e. most of them that aren't Italy/France/Greece) - this is in large part due to a healthy democracy in these countries, i.e. Germany's where politicians are forced to accept the majority will of the people and build coalitions representative of that view, rather than build a one party government that only represents say 30% of the population, screwing the other 70% over.

British transparency maybe a great concept, but it's not helping us in itself is it? even with all these exposures we still have lobbyist led policy. The transparency is useless without the increased accountability to hold those who are corrupt to account that much of European politics offers.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[jalopezp]

Maybe. The way I read it is this: I used to buy €1.10 with £1 one year ago; today, I buy €1.22 with the same £1. The euro has cheapened and the pound is stronger. Notice that the title of the graph is GBP/EUR, if the value of this ratio increases, then either the pound is up or the euro is down when compared to some other numeraire. On the other hand, as aliquis points out, the value of the pound has fallen since 2007-8,

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Anonymous Coward]

why do all your comments sound like it's written by some microsoft shill?

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Archangel Michael didn't dispute the definition CohibaVancouver proposed. Which, incidentally is exactly what socialism means.
2) A high corporate tax rate is not in any way socialism. Further, because of the way taxes are done in the US, the effective corporate tax much lower than rate you quote. It's on par with the rest of the developed world.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[ignavus]

socialism is defined as state ownership of enterprises

Defined by whom?

There are many forms of socialism, and some do not require any state ownership of enterprises.

For example, let me (as imaginary emperor) decree that all enterprises are hereby the property of their employees (one employee, one vote) rather than the shareholders (one share, one vote). So each board of directors will be democratically elected by the employees of the enterprise. We would now have total *worker* ownership and management of enterprises - a classic socialist position - without one skerrick of state ownership.

Leninist socialism was very much in favour of state ownership. Anarchist socialism - and many forms of democratic socialism - have preferred a "bottom up" democratisation of enterprises, where each enterpise is a self-governing association of workers rather than the current capitalist formula of a self-governing association of shareholders. State ownership defines "Marxism-Leninism", or Bolshevism, or Soviet Communism. It does not define socialism.

You should read the Wikipedia article on "state socialism".

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[Anonymous Coward]

As little as a year ago it was more like $2 to the Pound.

Nonsense. In 2007 the average value of £1 over the year was a fraction of a cent over $2.00. It peaked at $2.03 in 2008 and then immediately fell off a cliff when the financial crisis hit, since when it's usually been in the $1.50-1.60 range, which is much where it was 10 years ago.

As for the euro, before 2008 we got around €1.50 for £1, last year I got €1.10 when I was buying my holiday cash, and today it's around €1.22.

This is pure M$ moneygrab.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[CohibaVancouver]

Since when does socialism have to be all-or-nothing?

Because it's a term to describe something specific. You're a human. You're not a banana. It's all-or-nothing. Same deal with socialism - It's a term to describe a nation-state operation where the state ("the people") own the means of production.

Re:The British are proud of their Pound

[RockDoctor]

Speak for yourself.

Oh, hang on, from the construction of your subject line, you're in a separate class to "the British", so you wouldn't know.

Not all Brits are "proud" of the pound. Not all Brits give a shit. Many Brits have to work in 3, 4 or 5 different currencies a year, and wish there were fewer of them - which could be achieved by merging the two most frequently-used currencies.

Pedantic flame bate.

[Anonymous Coward]

...

What if the Pound goes down again?

[michelcolman]

Will they lower their UK prices in that case? Or will they just raise euro prices to compensate?

Re:What if the Pound goes down again?

[OliWarner]

Well, quite. International companies use exchange rates changes as an excuse to slowly edge the price up across the board.

And just to echo some of the other /.ers - I really do hope UK companies give Ubuntu (et al) a decent evaluation before they make any licensing decisions.

Re:What if the Pound goes down again?

[BasilBrush]

Given that they are an American company, presumably they use the US price as the standard, and judge large currency fluctuations from that.

Re:What if the Pound goes down again?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the pound doesn't actually seem to have gone down I don't think any sensible conclusions can be drawn. Since 2008 the pound has never been more than 3% above its current value against the dollar (for monthly averages). So unless Microsoft has been running prices 30% too low for 3 years the reason they gave was fallacious.

Re:What if the Pound goes down again?

[Anonymous Coward]

The pound is going down.

Re:What if the Pound goes down again?

[niftydude]

Will they lower their UK prices in that case? Or will they just raise euro prices to compensate?

Well the Oz dollar has gone from $US0.80 to $US1.04 in the last few years, and MS haven't lowered their prices at all there, so I guess you have your answer.

Re:What if the Pound goes down again?

[Anonymous Coward]

you're looking at that the wrong way thats how many Pounds a Euro will buy press the invert button at the top to see how many Euros you get to the Pound

Re:What if the Pound goes down again?

[wjousts]

I think you are reading that graph back-asswards. Click on invert. On November 22nd, 2011 £1 sterling would buy you €1.15. On May 2nd, 2012 that same £1 will buy you €1.23. That's the opposite of what you are trying to argue.

Or to put it another way, in November a Euro would cost you 86p. Today it'll cost you 81p. That means the Euro is worth less, not the pound.

Re:What if the Pound goes down again?

[digitig]

So unless Microsoft has been running prices 30% too low for 3 years the reason they gave was fallacious.

No. For it to be fallacious it would at least have to be plausible.

Re:What if the Pound goes down again?

[tukang]

Why would they lower prices if the pound loses value? They'd want more pounds in that case ...

Re:What if the Pound goes down again?

[michelcolman]

I meant up again, sorry. Which is actually what it has been doing for the last two years or so.

Re:What if the Pound goes down again?

[rtb61]

It all boils down to lock in. Once companies and government were sucked in to commit to a particular direction. M$ is now basically screwing them. If those Government departments and companies make sufficient noises about Linux and Foss the M$ price comes crashing back down again but only if the kick backs fail to ensure continued questionable decision making.

it's not like they weren't warned, again and, again and, again and, oh yes again. By people who had been similarly scammed with promises of one thing and delivery of another and continually rising prices and forced upgrades and etc. ect. etc.

People went to Linux because M$ forced them too (it just was far to expensive to be an M$ customer, lost time, upgrade costs, continual retraining, give me your credit card before I will answer your questions, etc. etc.), then M$ took umbrige and started hurling insults at ex-customers (calling us terrorists,computer hackers, organised criminals, cancers, viruses).

Those fools were warned based upon painful and bitter experience, they didn't listen not they have to pay, idiots.

Re:What if the Pound goes down again?

[dave87656]

I'd bet that the city of Munich is grinning right now, knowing that their investment in open source is already paying off.

The M$ fans are constantly looking for something ... anything .. to criticize. Every now and then they'll find a secretary who can't install her favorite screensaver from home, but the functionality of the system works and it starting to be looked at by other cities.

Re:What if the Pound goes down again?

[rtb61]

To be fair to a lot of the users. They are just not into computers full stop. They hate any change, they will stubbornly stick to the most idiosyncratic ways of using computers no matter how hard you try to show them betters ways, no matter how many problems doing it 'their' way causes. If they had started with Linux, they would have screamed about changing to windows. One or two years down the track, they will finally start bitching about something else, air-conditioning, car-parking, the deli across the street changing and will have forgotten all about the operating system change, except of course forever bitching about tech support no doing exactly what they want them to do when they want them to do it ;).

Re:What if the Pound goes down again?

[dave87656]

Very true!

What I was thinking about, though, were the blogs and news reports saying basically "See it doesn't work" when minor glitches happen or someone in the process complains that they can't do something they used to be able to do. There was a slew of reports that Munich was going back to Windows when, in fact, it was just a few PC's (2 or 3) that were going to continue on Windows because the software for that application wasn't rewritten for Linux yet.

We made the decision to use Linux in our medium sized business. Going to Linux has been a very good decision. Using Java has been mixed.

Re:Since when...

[Spad]

It's worse than you think, the majority of licensing are only increasing by 20-25% while Open Value is going up by 33.5%, which is presumably where the 1/3 figure comes from, so the "average" quoted isn't even representative of the actual changes.

Sound like a kick in the NUTS!

[na1led]

from an already vulnerable economy. Maybe this will finally spur open source platforms such as Linux.

Re:Sound like a kick in the NUTS!

[jellomizer]

Sorry... No it isn't.
In the grand scheme of things license cost is just a drop in the bucket. Also the license cost for most of the products are absorbed in the cost of the equipment.
If it was just license price was the major issue Linux would have regained massive market share when Windows XP came out.

Re:Sound like a kick in the NUTS!

[na1led]

I don't know where you get your figures from, but at our company, licensing fees are a huge deal. With hundreds of employees, licensing can far outcost any hardware we purchase. An increase in 30% license fee is an enormous jump. Our company pays very large annual license fees that cost nearly $100k,

Liars

[Anonymous Coward]

Exchange rates are a matter of public record. The pound has been gradually strengthening NOT WEAKENING against the euro for the last year and is now at a three year high.

There is only one reason for this:

Because they can.

Micro$oft, don't insult our intelligence by being such a bare faced liar.

Re:Liars

[c0lo]

Micro$oft, don't insult our intelligence by being such a bare faced liar.

Hear, hear... at least a niqab would be in order.

Re:Liars

[michelcolman]

It has since the beginning of 2009, but it was way higher before that. Take a look at the 5 year chart. The Pound went from almost 1.5 down to 1.04 and is now only back up to 1.22. So, as much as I hate Microsoft, I guess you could call that a "sustained weakness" even though the recent trend is certainly up.

Re:Liars

[Anonymous Coward]

That's true, but why didn't they do this three years ago when the pound was at its weakest? Er, actually they did, when they set the initial prices for Windows 7 in Euros and Pounds based on the exchange rates at the time.

This price hike is, as we say over here, "taking the piss". And claiming it's because of exchange rates is insulting our intelligence.

Re:Liars

[Anonymous Coward]

Or they can be like Adobe where their pricing scheme is $1.00 = £1.00

Got yea...

[c0lo]

Got yea by the balls, now pay up or sing soprano.

Meh!

[Polizei]

So, M$ are urging people to order, respectively buy Win7's 'till 1st of July, so they can release Win8 in August...
Nice!

Re:Meh!

[vandamme]

In other news, the price of Linux has remained the same.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/29/munich_linux_savings/

Problem for Ireland

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

This is a pretty obscure outcome of the recent Quantitative Easing of the Fed and the Bank of England, and a little confusing as Microsoft is a US company.

You have to remember that Microsoft's main European headquarters is in Dublin in Ireland, and hence operates in Euros. The quantitative easing of the pound means that the UK goods become cheaper to export, and that conversely, it becomes more expensive for UK-ians to import good from abroad. In this case, it has become 33% more expensive for them to import MS software from Ireland.

Which raises the question: Why should Microsoft continue to choose Dublin as their main European base of operations if this is the kind of price hikes they will be forced to impose on perhaps their single largest European market? Low corporation tax rates? Not if that treaty gets passed sunshine.

This is less a problem for Microsoft--who can move around--than it is for Ireland, which is rapidly becoming unattractive to high tech industries who, due to the falling US and UK currencies, are seeing their costs soar in Dublin. (By the way, this is occurring in the midst of a period of debt induced stagflation in Ireland as well.) The problem is only going to get worse the longer the ECB and Bundesbank keep putting their banking system before the citizens of the continent.

Microsoft aren't stupid, and as long as they can have a low cost, english speaking centre, with a currency pegged or floating steadily alongside Sterling, they will stay in Dublin. If they can only get an expensive, high tax centre pegged to the Deutschmark, they'll just move to London, or York, or whatever. The same goes for all the other high tech industries in Ireland. Vint Cerf's words this week explain that Ireland still has potential, despite government indifference towards the IT sector; but I don't think it has any under the euro.

This is just yet another economic case study which convinces me that Ireland needs to vote No on the 31st of this month, get the hell out of the Euro as fast as possible, and balance its budget in one fell swoop THIS YEAR. No more excuses.

(P.S. I believe in the EU, not the Euro.)

Re:Problem for Ireland

[Anonymous Coward]

In this case, it has become 33% more expensive for them to import MS software from Ireland

What "imports"? There are no physical goods involved.

Variation in prices resulting from exchange rates only make sense when the raw materials and / labour required to make a product cross currency boundaries.

In Microsoft's case, neither applies.

Re:Problem for Ireland

[Albanach]

This is a pretty obscure outcome of the recent Quantitative Easing of the Fed and the Bank of England, and a little confusing as Microsoft is a US company.

You have to remember that Microsoft's main European headquarters is in Dublin in Ireland, and hence operates in Euros. The quantitative easing of the pound means that the UK goods become cheaper to export, and that conversely, it becomes more expensive for UK-ians to import good from abroad. In this case, it has become 33% more expensive for them to import MS software from Ireland.

I'm not sure I follow. The Euro has hardly been outperforming Sterling

Indeed over the past three years there pound has been steadily recovering its value against the Euro, which should make imports from the Eurozone more affordable, not less.

Now, compared to the US Dollar, the pound is well below where it was pre 1999, but has been quite stable for some time now. It seems very strange to be blaming 29% price changes on currency fluctuations that are no-where close to 29%

Re:Problem for Ireland

[master811]

This is a pretty obscure outcome of the recent Quantitative Easing of the Fed and the Bank of England, and a little confusing as Microsoft is a US company.

You have to remember that Microsoft's main European headquarters is in Dublin in Ireland, and hence operates in Euros. The quantitative easing of the pound means that the UK goods become cheaper to export, and that conversely, it becomes more expensive for UK-ians to import good from abroad. In this case, it has become 33% more expensive for them to import MS software from Ireland.

You have it completely the wrong way around as this has nothing to do with quantitative easing as the Pound is currently stronger against the Euro than at any point in the last few years. This would make imports CHEAPER, and hence exports more expensive to Europe. Now if they were dealing with USD, then that is another matter entirely as the Pound is still relatively weak against it compared to what it was a few years ago.

Re:Problem for Ireland

[thestudio_bob]

Which raises the question: Why should Microsoft continue to choose Dublin

If I'm not mistaken, Dublin is a major Tax Haven for large corporations.

Re:Problem for Ireland

[CAPSLOCK2000]

You have to remember that Microsoft's main European headquarters is in Dublin in Ireland, and hence operates in Euros. The quantitative easing of the pound means that the UK goods become cheaper to export, and that conversely, it becomes more expensive for UK-ians to import good from abroad. In this case, it has become 33% more expensive for them to import MS software from Ireland.

Which raises the question: Why should Microsoft continue to choose Dublin as their main European base of operations if this is the kind of price hikes they will be forced to impose on perhaps their single largest European market? Low corporation tax rates? Not if that treaty gets passed sunshine.

This is less a problem for Microsoft--who can move around--than it is for Ireland, which is rapidly becoming unattractive to high tech industries who, due to the falling US and UK currencies, are seeing their costs soar in Dublin.

But where would they move to? Irelad is considered a tax-paradise. The only reason for having headquarters over there is the low tax-rate. If they move they will have to increase prices even further.

Re:Problem for Ireland

[digitig]

Which raises the question: Why should Microsoft continue to choose Dublin as their main European base of operations if this is the kind of price hikes they will be forced to impose on perhaps their single largest European market?

Why on Earth would the UK be Microsoft's single largest European market? What do you think they use in France, Germany, the Netherlands and so on?

Re:Problem for Ireland

[PremiumCarrion]

Microsoft fears open sores in those countries

Re:Problem for Ireland

[digitig]

I'm UK based, but most of my work is in continental Europe. All of my clients use MS Office under MS Windows, and in some cases require that we use their templates with VBA macros, which pretty much prevents us using an open source office suite. Europe isn't the Gnu/Linux/Libre Office hotbed you seem to think it is.

Re:Problem for Ireland

[BlueScreenO'Life]

Getting the euro in the first place was a mistake for some in the Euro-periphery, but getting out of it now and re-adopting a floating currency (otherwise, what's the point in getting out) is about the worst possible course of action: you can't do overnight, and people will try to withdraw/send overseas all of their money as soon as possible. Assuming the banks have that much money (which is debatable), massive capital flight and black market are not exactly great solutions to any economy. Governments could try to prevent that with "corralito"-like measures but we all know how well that worked in Argentina.

Then there is debt inflation, legal nightmares and a few thousand more reasons not to quit the euro; those are just the most obvious.

Re:Problem for Ireland

[Anonymous Coward]

Traditionally, Microsoft price to OEMs in USD, Open Licenses (SME focus) in Euros and SELECT in GBP. Not sure what Enterprise agreements are based on, but if you're dealing with a multinational customer, they can largely choose where to place their PO. Subsidiary that bills the order gets 20% of the income, each Subsidiary where licenses are deployed pro-rata'd out of the remaining 80%. They've exempted the public sector from the price increase. So, at face value, an end of financial year scare story to bring money commits without having to buy next financial years business into the current fy. Not without some big risks also.

Re:Problem for Ireland

[sociocapitalist]

You are assuming that there is some actual rational behind the price hike other than greed.

I don't think that Microsoft is 'importing' volume licensing from anywhere. They're raising prices because they can, nothing more. The rest is bullshit.

Re:Problem for Ireland

[chrb]

Double Irish and Dutch Sandwich

That is only reason why Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Oracle etc. all have their international headquarters in Dublin.

Will it continue? Who knows...

Re:Problem for Ireland

[Patch86]

If they can only get an expensive, high tax centre pegged to the Deutschmark, they'll just move to London, or York, or whatever.

Completely aside, it tickles me that you would pick York (pop. 200,000, 80th largest city in the UK) as second choice to London (pop. 8 to 14 million, depending what you're counting). Sometimes I think New York, New York has done more to raise the profile of that town to foreigners than a thousand Visit England advertising campaigns.

Re:Problem for Ireland

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

London is an expensive place to set up an internet business. Microsoft might want to go some-place cheaper. My Geography of the UK isn't great, so I just picked somewhere in the North.

The taste of a monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

We feel it all the time.

Re:Since when...

[Bigby]

Human-speak recognizes 1/2, 1/3, 2/3, 1/4, 3/4 and maybe 1/5, 2/5, 3/5, and 4/5. Once you go beyond that, the normal human brain will have to think for a period of time.

So the nearby choices are 50%, 33%, 25%, or 20%. In the interest of extra dramatization, it was the one higher that was picked. 1/3.

Where would you draw the line? Would you use two-seventh?

29% is excessive greed

[Anonymous Coward]

The Dollar is higher against the pound than it was a year ago, as is the Euro. Even so the difference is about 0.08% not 29%.

Putting prices up by eight times the rate of inflation is just greed.

This is the same company that cut Partner licenses from 10 to 3 per product, while raising the price in the name of "piracy prevention". Surely these actions will simply have the reverse effect?

Re:29% is excessive greed

[Anonymous Coward]

You're half right, the Dollar is a teensy bit higher than it was a year ago against the Pound, however, the Euro is quite a bit LOWER against the Pound, not higher and Microsoft Europe are allegedly justifying this entirely on the Euro exchange rate, not the Dollar rate.

If I was a UK PC vendor I'd be buying licenses from a continental European supplier in Euros.

I do have to wonder if this is an effort to discourage, or at least profit from, the likes of Dabs, Novatech and Overclockers selling OEM versions to hobbyist system builders.

Time for a new "Ask Slashdot" post

[L4t3r4lu5]

Are their any good online resources for rolling out Linux clients on a Windows domain? Mint, Ubuntu, Fedora, anything... I'm not particular familiar with any distro, so learning to administer any of them would be of benefit. I've no real need to use MS products in my environment, and am just aching for an excuse to switch.

Maybe by the time the switch is complete, OD will match AD in functionality. Win-win.

Re:Time for a new "Ask Slashdot" post

[h4rr4r]

These days it is just easier to use Likewise Open.
It will do everything for you.

Before bothering with that though, setup a vm and learn about the distro you want to use. Learn about automation of updates, locking down the desktop etc, before you even bother with AD stuff.

Re:Time for a new "Ask Slashdot" post

[QuantumRiff]

Why stick with a MS product as the core? look at Zentyal, which among other things, acts as a PDC in an easy to setup and configure way. There is no group policy (yet, samba 4 is due in zentyal 3.0) but you can push login scripts.

Re:Time for a new "Ask Slashdot" post

[h4rr4r]

Or just use something like puppet. Group policy was a great design for its time, and for what it was working with. For an OS that does not have windows limitations with writing to open files and such, things can be done much more on the fly.

Re:Time for a new "Ask Slashdot" post

[L4t3r4lu5]

No VM necessary; I have Mint 11 as my desktop OS, just not linked to the domain. I've no great need to move away from it; It does what I need it to.

I guess learning about the other stuff comes from reading the documentation... Always a thrill! Thanks for your post.

Re:Time for a new "Ask Slashdot" post

[ratboy666]

Indeed.

I know how to install a Linux server in an AD domain, but proper Linux clients these days?

Confuses me.

Windows doesn't do the "Unixy" stuff, so we maintain a separate sub-net with NIS, NFS and the other Unixy stuff. But I have no idea how to "log in" to the Windows AD domain. Some magic, obviously. And, after that login, SMB file shares should somehow be mapped -- if the pushed AD information can be made available, it could be parsed for the mount details.

This would certainly make my life much easier. Right now, I email documents and files to myself, then log in to a Windows client, launch IE, go to our OWA site and fetch the documents to plant into the file system for my Windows-only coworkers.

I also need the Windows box to change my Windows password (enforced every --- days here). OWA doesn't let me change the password, and neither does Evolution.

Kind of a wooden table approach. There must be a better way.

Re:Time for a new "Ask Slashdot" post

[Hatta]

I just pass Samba the 'domain' option in my fstab to mount shares and ignore the rest of the AD crap.

Re:Time for a new "Ask Slashdot" post

[marcosdumay]

You can mount SMB shares like any other kind of network shares, using mount (they aren't dependent of AD). You'll probably use CIFS, as last time I looked, SMBFS was deprecated. There is a FUSE drive for that, so you can mount as a normal user (as always, KDE will mount it for you if you are using it).

Well, I have no idea how to replace NIS with AD, as I never had to do that. Samba 4 may help you, or not.

Re:Time for a new "Ask Slashdot" post

[afidel]

Just use Kerberos for authentication, MS has their own dialect but the Linux libraries can all handle it at this point.

No way out? Is M$ the only game in town?

[bogaboga]

I know this is the "wrong" question to ask...but can a slashdotter authoritatively tell me that for all those volume licensees, Microsoft is the only game in town?

Heck, we now have a revamped Apple ecosystem, and Google's Chrome OS or Red Hat Linux would be a perfect fit for one [major] government department I visited a fortnight ago.

All their operations have credible OSS implementations and could be easily be ported to the web. You might wonder how I know...I know this because I am intimately familiar with their IT operations.

Re:No way out? Is M$ the only game in town?

[Anonymous Coward]

We are an SPLA licensee (for dedicated servers and VMs). Some of our customers want Microsoft licenses for those. Microsoft set the (minimum) pricing irrespective of which of their licensing partners we use.

Re:No way out? Is M$ the only game in town?

[Overzeetop]

It's all fun and games until someone needs to use a package that runs on windows only. Old stuff can probably be emulated (though I've had pretty mixed success with even simple programs in Oracle VMs), but the killers are the commercial packages which run only on windows and are absolute resource hogs. I suspect there are some in many industries, but it mine - structural engineering - AutoCAD is about the only game in town for archtiectural products, and many (if not most) of the analysis programs are Win only. All struggle to run in a native OS on the most modern hardware. Part of it is lazy-ass programming (I'm talking to you, AutoDesk), and part of it is just computational limits. If we're willing to go back to running a model and going out for a 2-3 hours lunch, or prepping models ahead of time to queue up to run after hours, it's an option, but an inefficient one.

There's also the issue of re-training. Never underestimate the inability for (or inefficiency in) people to learn a new OS paradigm. An extra £30 pales in comparison to the personnel cost of a half-day class to get everyone up to speed.

Re:Since when...

[Anonymous Coward]

For the pedantic, the new headline should read:

Microsoft Raises UK Prices by 29 100ths, and oPless and Spad Can Now Go Back To Rearranging The Cutlery Drawer

you're welcome,

You can say British.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no need to say UKians, since we have allowed a word to mean "those in the United Kingdom of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland".

That you don't particularly like USians is no reason to pretend there is no such word.

What you could do is find a word that means "Citizens of the 49(?) contiguous states of the United States of America" that won't include Canadians, exclude New Mexico but not include Mexico or the south american continent.

Re:You can say British.

[Gordonjcp]

The problem is that USians say "England" and "English" when they mean Britain and British.

It's great fun calling New Yorkers "Mexicans" - they're all Americans, right? Same thing, right? And it's not like they can do anything like it - unlike people in the UK, New Yorkers aren't allowed to own guns...

I am altering the deal...

[OwMyBrain]

Pray I don't alter it further.

What does the Euro have to do with this ?

[Builder]

What does the relationship between the Euro and the Pound have to a supplier based in the USA who trades in dollars ?

Looking at http://www.x-rates.com/d/GBP/USD/graph120.html , the pound has been very close to the dollar for quite a while now. They're both weakening on the global markets, but they're keeping pretty good pace with each other.

Re:What does the Euro have to do with this ?

[Anonymous Coward]

My interpretation was that it was something to do with the fact that the EU is a single market and European firms can buy their volume licences in the UK.

Re:What does the Euro have to do with this ?

[bazorg]

For the European market, Microsoft is headquartered in Ireland and is a company that trades in Euro.

Microsoft is misunderstood.

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft is widely misunderstood. People think Microsoft is a software company that is sometimes abusive. That's wrong. Microsoft is an abuse company that uses software to deliver abuse.

Just my opinion, but I'm not the only one who thinks that way.

Re:Microsoft is misunderstood.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a problem. Microsoft is no longer needed, there are good free alternatives for all they have.

Surprise!

[organgtool]

Microsoft Exec 1: Our fiscal year is ending on June 30 and our revenue is barely larger than it was last year! What can we do to get more money?
Microsoft Exec 2: We could raise the price of our most successful product!
Microsoft Exec 1: I don't know - then we risk people switching over to Macs or Linux.
Microsoft Exec 3: What if we raise the price of Windows in just a single country?!
Microsoft Exec 1: I love it! The only question is which country should we raise the price? Which country has been the biggest thorn in our side and at the same time has the capital to afford a higher price?
Microsoft Exec 2: Well, it has to be somewhere in Europe. The EU has been more stringent about our aggressive business tactics than any other organization.
Microsoft Exec 3: And England is one of the more financially sound countries in the EU!
Microsoft Exec 1: Gentlemen, we've found our mark! Prepare your finest strippers and coke!

Whereas in Asia...

[initialE]

Over here we buy our licenses in USD. Why the inconsistency?

Exchange Rates?

[tubs]

Well, it's always been $1 = £1

So now it's €1 = £1 as well.

It is British Pound against Euro

[SYSS Mouse]

This price increase is a measure against http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_market

Two years ago 1 Pound = 1.5 Euro, now it is 1.3 Euro. http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=GBPEUR%3DX
  MS is increasing the price in GB so that M$ price is around the same in Europe zone.

Re:It is British Pound against Euro

[rb12345]

That's miles out. Back in 2007, it *was* around €1.50/£-ish. By 2009-ish, that had dropped to around €1.10/£ - far worse than today, and since then the pound has strengthened again to ~€1.22/£.

Re:It is British Pound against Euro

[Solandri]

And if the GBP goes back up to 1.5 Euro, they'll fix it by lowering the price again, right? No? Whaddaya mean it needs to be fixed by raising the price in Euros?

Re:It is British Pound against Euro

[NoobixCube]

I'll believe the price increases are due to currency and economy shifts, and not "because we can", when they lower the Australian prices by about 60%.The Australian dollar is fluctuating a few cents either side of the US one, depending on numerous factors like the colour of our respective head of states' underwear each day, yet the prices seem even slightly higher than they were when AU$1 = US$0.50.

Re:It's a costly process

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you have to translate the legalese from American "you fucking worthless consumer peons have no rights under corporations" to European "what the fuck, these little shits have rights in exchange for the money they pay?".

Sustainable MS OS Pricing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Warren Buffet once said he wouldn't invest in Microsoft because he couldn't understand the long term value in software. Is he right?

Can MS continue to hold, let alone gain, marketshare as the pricing stays high or goes higher in an evermore competitive commodity PC world?

Re:Sustainable MS OS Pricing?

[Locutus]

but as long as Microsoft knows they can keep obsoleting old versions of their software and forcing upgrades and repurchases of licenses their long term income remains. It's been referred to as the Microsoft treadmill and it has sustained them for well over a decade. How else could they have 90% market share and continue pulling in billions in profits quarter after quarter?

It is getting tougher for MS though with OSS and raising their prices just makes that worst. If we read about them doing another corporate reorganization then it might be MS is digging for ways to continue showing growth in their financial reports.

LoB

Re:Sustainable MS OS Pricing?

[bruce_the_loon]

Volume licensing like this covers all versions. A desktop enterprise licensing can be 98, 2000, XP, Vista, 7 or 8, same for server enterprise licensing. You can license based on perpetual intance of a version, but then you can't go to the next version without a new purchase. The treadmill still applies as you have to keep paying each year for this right.

NOW is the year for Linux in the Enterprise!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, wait......

Liberated software for the Brits

[Anonymous Coward]

And the latest opportunity of the FSF to urge the British masses to embrace free software now arrives. Maybe come out with a new version of GNU called HMOS - Her Majesty's Operating System

Grey market blabla

[a_claudiu]

Microsoft is not selling a finite resource. It's selling virtual copies and IP blabla. Unless the UK have special demands to tweak their OS, Office that needs to be done outside UK there is no need to adjust price acording to exchange parity. Services costs will increase only if they are offshore (maybe the rupee is increasing or the wages in India). Microsoft and the rest are not selling at a well defined price (production cost + x% profit) they are selling at the biggest price somebody is willing to pay. Seems that UK is willing to pay or somebody is thinking so from his sky high office with his helicopter view over the things.

Re:Grey market blabla

[PPH]

How do UK (and EU) prices stack up against US prices?

I'd think that people in the UK could easily work with the English/US version (assuming they don't get bent out of shape about the spelling of colour or aluminium).

Re:Grey market blabla

[dkf]

I'd think that people in the UK could easily work with the English/US version (assuming they don't get bent out of shape about the spelling of colour or aluminium).

There's also a lot of other localization to do to make things work in the UK (stuff like date and time handling).

However, the big difference is almost certainly to do with totally different sets of laws relating to liability for faults and other things like that. That sort of thing can have a really big influence on costs, and it's pretty substantially different on the two sides of the Atlantic.

always one way?

[DaveGod]

Looking at the currency conversion chart over the last 5 years (note axis doesn't start at 0) you can see that MS is getting less dollar or Euro for each £1 GBP in income. The chart appears to show an initially fairly steady exchange giving, for every £1, around abouts $2 or €1.30, which has since dropped to around $1.60 (down 25%) or €1.20 (down 8%).

Now look at the second chart on that link. We can see that over the 10 year period the 8% drop in the amount of Euros being obtained for £1 GBP does look like a sustained currency difference. MS presumably has some European division, probably the one in low-tax Ireland, looking at their figures and sure enough UK sales are looking down over the long term due to currency fluctuations.

Do I buy that? Nope. MS is a US company and all financial reporting that matters is in USD. I'd bet even all internal reporting that matters is in USD, so I doubt this is some internal bureaucracy mishap. Looking at both charts combined, i.e. 2002 - 2012, the pound has been up for a while but now back around where it was. Keep going back if you like, the interactive chart is here. $1.60 for a £1 looks to be about the typical value.

Price rises are justified by unfavourable exchange rate movements. Prices increase in UK because of Stirling:Euro, prices rise in Europe because of Euro:dollar. It's always one way. They're never justifying a price cut on the back of favourable movements. I'm not just cynical about MS specifically, it's quarterly reporting. Gains are considered favourably for the quarter but then basically considered in the bank and there's a new baseline for next quarter. They're never really considered temporary, soon as it falls back it's a problem that needs addressed.

While I'm here I'll note the low value of the pound is largely an intentional effort by the government to entice foreign investment.

I should also note that what TFA should really have done is taken the actual pricing faced by customers in each area and made the comparison. It's possible the UK price was discounted all along (very surprising and against the norm if so however). For whatever reason, they didn't, and I don't have that info to provide it myself.

It's all relative

[Anonymous Coward]

My wage is somewhere around $47k a year and I expect it to be fifty-something-k a year when I graduate. Add to that all the insurances, social security fees, health care, etc. and my cost for my employer should be around 70k a year (give or take, depending on the country you live in). Add my proportion of electricity, network, water, office space, etc. used, the equipment I use and so on and I doubt we're that much below $100k a year... Now, take 30% of the MS licenses I need (pretty much just the OS, Office and Exchange) and see if you'd call that an enormous jump to the cost of doing business.

Riiiight

[Eth1csGrad1ent]

By that logic we wouldn't need a price gouging inquiry in Australia.

The $AU has been at parity with the $US or above for years now - but Australians are still paying massively over the top prices compared to their American counterparts.

Definition of a monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

When you can raise prices during an economic downturn ...

business nimrods

[Anonymous Coward]

the ms marketing model is based on providing the typical flashing lights and colors technologies, in a just- barely- ready- for- prime- time product, knowing full well every dumbaz business budget will swallow the next round of upgrades eagerly. They never provide what is really wanted changing every product testifying that "everyone" requested the changes. This keeps the fkn idiot technowanna-be business executives reaching for the next upgrade as proofs that they know what there are doing _ SKOFFF puke