a price difference of $1662 US in a predominantly English speaking country for what is presumably exactly the same product. The usual European answer doesn’t stand up, as the currency is the same and major language is English. Although the population is much smaller, I still don’t see how such a huge markup is justified?

Not happy at the prospect of paying twice the price and all channels from the US seemingly thwarted by Adobe I rang the UK customer services. They stuck to their guns but did say I could write in and complain. I did. I got the official line back, but they did say that if I could find a US retailer to send it to me there was nothing to stop that.

I then asked a very specific question. I asked if I purchased a US originated upgrade for CS3 Design Premium would it register and upgrade against my serial number for Macromedia Studio MX [a genuine qualifying product].

They said no!

They lied!

I didn’t believe them, because an earlier email from one of the customer services reps intimated that it would work, which was the reason for the specific question.

However I didn’t want to risk wasting the money though, what next!

I was working late one evening a couple of weeks ago, [when I realised I would have to upgrade] I downloaded the 30 day trial version of Flash CS3 for a specific job and set about making a purchase!
It was about 9pm, and I realised the US would be awake so I telephoned Adobe customer services in the US and tried to buy from them, inevitably I couldn’t, I was told FedEX don’t make international deliveries!!!!

The very helpful but nonetheless naive girl then suggested that I could buy from Adobe UK!

Foiled again. I then rang back and asked the US the same question I asked the UK, she wasn’t sure, she put me on hold to enquire, came back to me confused about languages and transfers, I explained again that it was a simple case of registering a US product against a UK serial number, she didn’t know, but then she said “I’ll try for you”.

Eureka!

She plugged my serial number into her computer and said that it was fine and would register with no problems, I got her to repeat it to make sure.

I now knew the UK lied and that if I could find a US retailer to send internationally I would be sorted.

I got onto Amazon.com, they wont ship as Adobe have that blocked, but Marketplace retailers may do.
I found one, who was selling a genuine un-registered copy @$562 !! even better.
So in total it cost me $562 $77 shipping, £56 customs VAT and Parcelforce handling. Roughly half the standard UK price!!!

Installed, registered and working perfectly this morning.

So if anyone is feeling the same: I can confirm that registration against Macromedia Studio MX does work, ring Adobe in the US and get them to check your serial number. The US were very helpful, unlike the UK who are somewhat cagey about anything to do with upgrades and cost. I wonder why.

Just how long will Adobe maintain their stance in what is quite clearly unfair to the rest of the world. It seems to me the rest of the world subsidises the US market, their standard defence about catering for other markets is rubbish as each market should be able to pay for itself, not catering for language variations would mean they are minimising their market. That argument would hold some water for other language variations, but unless it has escaped Adobe’s notice, the primary language in the US is in fact English. The product is identical. Why the cost discrepency! They should charge 20% premium for logistics, that would be fair. What do the non English speaking US based customers do, of which there are many, do they buy a Spanish version at inflated cost because Adobe has to cater for other languages - I think not.

When other software houses manage to charge relatively similar amounts across territories and exchange rates I suggest Adobe is doing something fundamentally wrong, if their argument is genuine.

I suspect it’s not, and they charge what they think the market will bear.

If not they should take lessons from the others.

That’s my gripe, I could go on and on and quote Adobe’s emails, which not surprisingly have exactly the same content as other quoted on this page but that would just be getting boring.

Courtesy http://www.techshout.com/

Then about a week ago my company asked me to look into purchasing CS3 again having seen the price gap widen from last year I sent Adobe an email

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Hi, so on the basis that i can’t find any complaints area
on the Adobe web site, i was wondering if you could tell me why there is
such a BIG difference between buying…. lets say CS3 in the USA and yep
you guessed it CS3 in the UK Same product same spec
Full version in the US $1,799.95 = £909.839 Full version in the uk ex
Vat £1,409.00 = $2,786.74
Thats a difference of $986.79 = £498.78
Me thinks you guys are having a bit of a laugh.
I also think that if you ever want to combat digital piracy, you need to
sort your greed out.
Just for the record I object being charged well over the odds just so
Adobe can pay for the eye patches, wooden legs and the dry cleaning bill
for parrot poop.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

the reply

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

With regard of your request I am hereby to inform you that pricing is higher in Europe on many goods, not just software, so it?s important to understand why. Adobe pricing is based on customer research, local market conditions and the cost of doing business. Unlike the economies of scale achieved in the large homogenous US market, the EU has 10 major languages, 4 major currencies and diverse regional markets. The costs of doing business in the European market are significantly higher per unit of revenue than in the US

I hope to have informed you properly

Yours Sincerely,

Devis Pizzolato

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Now i can smell BS when i see it so i chucked another email at them.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Dear Devis Pizzolato

Having taken a couple of mins to work out the prices of CS3 in the other English speaking countries of the world i.e. Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Ireland, I find it hard to understand the huge differences in costing between what is being paid in the US and the UK and Commonwealth, same product same language (almost). I see that if I live in India and speak English I can buy at the same US $ price as the US so why can’t I buy the US version of CS3 pay VAT and shipping to England?
Just because the Marketing Department of Adobe have said “lets think of a number and double it”, don’t make it right… No matter how many times you say it.

As I said in my first email I will not be purchasing this product at the price Adobe are trying force onto the UK market.

I will also be actively trying to inform members of the UK’s design world about Adobe’s price……. Inconsistencies.

It seems to me that digital piracy is a two way street, one side is legal the other isn’t but both appear in this case to be morally wrong.
September 19th is the International Talk Like a Pirate Day, just in case any Adobe management need practice.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I guess subtlety is not my strong point, but im sick of Corporates like Adobe asking me to take a rectal examination every time i want to buy their product.

Clem

We’ll purchase one for the office in the UK. But apart from that, InDesign we’re shelving (hello Publisher/Quark), Dreamweaver we’re shelving (hello Microsoft Expression Web), Flex we’ve shelved (now using ASP.NET / Eclipse random tools), Director, After Effects and Audition we’ve shelved in favour of competing products. Now we won’t have suite synergy, but the loss of 10 full suites of Adobe programs won’t hurt us as much as we’d previously thought. We’ll still have older versions of the software, don’t need to worry about installation issues, problematic on PCs (4 of our 5 Vista PC’s won’t work for the trial versions) and also on Macs (beta/trial cleaning and admin accounts).

And Abobe lose………..about US$10000 from their bottom line. We’ve had full suites of Adobe Macromedia products since Dreamweaver 1.2 and Photoshop 3.0.

Voting with your feet is sometimes the only way - and then publicising it in a blog Adobe employees read.

When I tried to upgrade to DW8 I was suddnely informed by Adobe that this won’t be possible anymore and I had to get it from my local European distributor.

If you look at the outreagious photos in Rostock, where anti-globalism people are fighting the police: This might be one of the reasons for violence.

How can Adobe be brought to reason?