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Adobe To Australians: Fly To US For Cheaper Software
angry tapir writes "It's been a long-running joke that it's cheaper for Australians to get a plane ticket to the U.S. if they want to buy Adobe's Creative Suite instead of paying local prices. But appearing before a parliamentary inquiry into the disparity between IT prices in Australia and elsewhere, Adobe's local chief appeared to suggest just that."
Other companies gave their responses to the inquiry as well. Microsoft said they'll simply charge what the market will bear. Apple tossed out a host of reasons for the price difference; its retail partners, digital content owners, exchange rates, taxes, import duties, and an apparent inability to alter the price set by its U.S. parent company.
It is like I have always said, a popular black market is proof "You are doing it wrong". Either your prices are too high, you are too restrictive, something, because if you were making your customers happy then the black market wouldn't be popular. Look at how swapping MP3s was once big but now services like Spotify and YouTube have killed a good chunk of that, there really is no reason to bother with P2P when you can have just about any single in return for putting up with a couple of ads.So I really wouldn't blame the people of Australia from just going P2P as its obvious the market isn't serving their needs.
This is gonna be OT but fuck it, there are still some geeks here and I have come across a real head scratcher...here is the sitch, got a customer, mid 50s, plays flight sims and surfs, that's it, but somehow he keeps blowing up computers. for some reason he doesn't blow up laptops JUST desktops, and I can't for the life of me figure out HOW he is doing it. Tried putting it on a UPS in case the power was bad? No good, still blew. I have replaced damned near every part in that machine with new parts, new parts that would still be going if it were anybody else, new CPU, new board, new RAM, the only parts I haven't replaced yet is the case and the GPU but I know the GPU is good as it was mine and I baby my gear and never had a single glitch and the case belonged to my oldest boy who gamed on it for ages without a single hiccup.
So I don't get it, how in the fuck can one old guy keep blowing fucking boards like that? Is it possible to have something wrong with a line that can get past a UPS? Correct me if I'm wrong but I was always told a UPS has the PC run off the battery so that any surges or sags wouldn't affect the PC. And the real stumper is the laptop...why isn't it frying? Its an old Atom netbook so its not like this thing is quality but whatever is causing this has affected it not at all, its ONLY the desktops that blow up. I just can't seem to figure this one out as it doesn't seem to matter where the parts come from, whether they are new or used, it always ends with the system just shutting smooth off and never firing up again. Real head scratcher. I have taken his CPUs and slapped them in another board and had them fire right up so I'm pretty sure he is somehow frying out the boards (although I can't find any obvious damage like blown caps) but I just can't figure out HOW, how can one old guy playing 7 year old flight sims blow up a motherboard protected by a UPS?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Strange. Any damage on the boards that looks odd? He could have an insect infestation that likes to invade the desktop tower, but laptop is more sealed.
Does he uses the desktop and laptop at the same exact spot? Could be that he got something with heavy interference running near where he uses the tower opposed to laptop.
Are you confident that the UPS is not faulty? In my experience power supplies are the second most common device to fail inside the computer behind the hard drive. Still you mentioned that you replaced all the components...
Is the surface he places the tower on is conductive? Could be he has issues with grounding in the house and the surface the tower on is charged, thus affects the metal case. Laptop is plastic thus not affected.
All of these are really picking at straws; You seem to covered all the obvious causes. This really is a puzzling case. Keep us updated on the case; I am really curious now.