Adobe buckles, cuts prices ahead of Australian inquiry

If only we’d all known it would be so easy: in the wake of being summonsed by the Australian parliament’s inquiry into IT pricing, Adobe has cut the price of its Creative Cloud suite to Australian users. The pricing inquiry kicked off last year to look at the practise of geographic price discrimination by international vendors …

[benzaholic]

No VAT or GST in the Land of the Free

<quote>To be fair, Vulture South is not aware of what taxes are included in the US price, while the Australian price includes $197.46 in goods and services tax (GST). However, the US bundle (including Web Premium) is slightly different to the Australian offering.</quote>

Advertised prices in the US generally do not include any taxes.

If the seller has a (vaguely defined) retail presence in the US state of the buyer, then the seller must collect sales tax at the buyer's local rate. Here in my part of central Texas, that is 8.25 per cent. (No state income tax here, just the Federal one, so Texas government entities raise much of their funding through sales taxes.)

Paris cuz she'd probably like a free VAT of GST.

[Magani]

Buckles?

"Adobe buckles, cuts prices"

It reduces the price of (ASAICT) of one item. Hardly a fire sale, is it.

However, El Reg isn't the only IT arena in this neck of the woods where this is being trumpeted as the beginning of the end of price gouging, Aussie style.

[Rattus Rattus]

Is it any wonder...

...that most Australians don't give a crap about piracy? They rip us off as a matter of routine, so fuck 'em. Yarr, and yo-ho-ho!

[Charles Smith]

MP's cojones

A good move by the Oz government. All we need now is for some of the UK MPs to also develop some cojones and to stand up to Adobe et al for the British public.

[Richard Cranium]

Re: MP's cojones

Yes, UK price is usually the same NUMBER as US price, they just replace the dollar sign with a pound. One excuse given is that "software has to be translated for the European market" - well I can cope with "colour" being spelt incorrectly.

When I needed to upgrade Adobe CS at a time when the pound was very strong relative to dollar I tried buying from Amazon US but that was blocked. I ended up getting a friend in US to buy it for me.

[Neoc]

I guess Adobe didn't want to face the Husic?

Yeah, yeah, coat.

[Tannin]

A cheap trick that will fool no-one

Window dressing designed to obscure the obscene just-cause-you-live-in-Australia price gouge. For example, Americans can download Photoshop CS6 Upgrade for $US199 ( $AU193). But to download the EXACT SAME product from the EXACT SAME server in the USA, paying in EXACTLY THE SAME way (valid credit card, in the USA, in US dollars if desired) Adobe gouge Australians $US317.41 ($AU307).

That is a 59.5% price gouge with no valid excuse whatever.

Time we slung some Adobe executives in the slammer and left them there until they stopped this robbery.

[Tannin]

PS

A quick PS. there is no tax included in that 59.5% price gouge I just mentioned. The entire sum - 159.5% of the actual $US199 price - goes directly to Adobe. No Australian GST or other tax is payable. Adobe keep the lot.

[chris lively]

The question is why?

It's not just software, but a whole slew of products that are much more expensive simply because you happen to be in Australia. Apparently it is very common to charge 60 to 100% more there.

So the question is: why?

Do Australians make a lot more money per person than say those in the US? I know that products are typically priced based on the purchasers ability to pay. So what is it about Oz that encourages this? Or is there some issue with the actual transaction, such as hidden taxes that corporations have to pay? Seems really odd.