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Australian Govt Forces Apple, Adobe, Microsoft To Explain Price Hikes
An anonymous reader writes "Live outside the U.S.? Tired of paying huge local price markups on technology products from vendors such as Apple, Microsoft and Adobe? Well, rest easy, the Australian Government is on the case. After months of stonewalling from the vendors, today the Australian Parliament issued subpoenas compelling the three vendors to appear in public and take questions regarding their price hikes on technology products sold in Australia. Finally, we may have some answers for why Adobe, for example, charges up to $1,400 more for the full version of Creative Suite 6 when sold outside the U.S."
should bloody well be on that list as well.
That is the only honest answer that there is. As long as artificial monopolies like 'regions' are tolerated it will only continue. There is no valid reason why software or other companies should be able to use globalism for cheaper labor whilst denying consumers globalism for cheaper products. I don't see how things are going to change until world governments start demanding better treatment though.
Why are textbooks 1/10th the cost in Indonesia? Why couldn't I buy Top Gear in the US for years when it was available for cheap overseas in the discount bin? Why are Corvette's twice the price in Europe? The list goes on and the answer come back to artificial monopolies charging more because they can. Introduce competition, make grey market imports legal, demand manufacturers honor warranties regardless of the country of origin, allow people to buy software in any country regardless of where they live etc......
You could stop buying the products. If enough people find the offenses of these companies egregious enough and stop purchasing the products they will change their behavior. You have to be willing to do without it though, not just pirate it, or they will blame the piracy as the reason they are losing business instead of their crappy model.
GENERATION 27: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
You might want to research your info a bit before you start spewing Fox talking points.
If you'd bothered to check when a Republican last balanced a budget, you would find that it was in 1957 under Eisenhower. Obama, in his last term, increased the debt/GDP by ~10%. If you look at Reagan and Bush Jr, both of them had terms that increased the debt/GDP by over 25%.
Don't believe me? Google "which republican president balanced a budget?". You might learn something.
Help I am stuck in a signature factory!
That'd be because the majority of pharmaceuticals are covered under the Pharmaceutical Benefit System, ie, subsidised by the government as part of free and universal health care. I'm sure that if the Australian government didn't do that, we'd get an especially large "fuck you" from the pharma companies as well.
As far as media goes, I'm hopeful that something might come of this, it's one thing on physical products (where at least you can put it down to "shipping"), but when buying the exact same software, (or even the same song), costs at least 100% more, then there is no other explanation than price gouging. Particularly galling when most of these countries don't pay much Australian tax on their Australian profits either.
Laughter is the best medicine, except if you have a broken rib.
The really odd thing is a current hard line Republican would see many of Eisenhower's policies as outright commie talk.
You know what, you're right! That $5000 spread across every Australian customer definitely does equate to 50% more per copy!
http://www.classification.gov.au/Industry/Journey/Pages/CGnonA/Step3.aspx
Historically, the AUD has been worth about 0.75 USD (click on 10 year). It wasn't until the global financial meltdown that the AUD shot up in value to where it surpassed parity with the USD (Australia's economy wasn't hurt as much because they didn't have a housing bubble at the time, though they have one now). If you compare before and after, the AUD increased in value by about 40% against the USD. If you compare the software prices, they too are about 40% higher. Surprise, surprise.
When companies conduct business internationally, they usually negotiate a fixed exchange rate for a year (or a quarter). It helps insulate their annual financial planning from fluctuations in the currency markets. So when the AUD first shot up, the vendors importing US software still had to pay 1.3 AUD per 1.0 USD, even though 1.3 AUD was now worth closer to 1.4 USD. The next year when they went to negotiate currency exchange prices again, the US companies said "OMG! You want a 40% price cut? You can't be serious!" And the Australian vendors didn't have purchasing power to negotiate a better deal. So year after year they got shafted with prices based on pre-2007 exchange rates. (In the US companies' defense, they probably argued that if the AUD shot up 40% in a year, it could drop 40% the next year, and they weren't willing to take that big a risk and adjust the exchange rate by that large an amount. But it's unconscionable that it's continued for 5 years.)