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.

How many people are buying this needlessly?

[damn_registrars]

I know there are plenty of people who really do need Adobe software for various reasons. However, I know there are also lots of people who could get by with GIMP instead of Photoshop and Inkscsape instead of Illustrator (I am one of those later people). I think there is a missed opportunity here for the open source community to gain some traction down under...

Competition Yadda

[Greyfox]

They can charge what they want to with pretty much no competition. Why not fire up a kickstarter campaign to add whatever features are missing to their open source competition? Maybe it'd be cheaper to hire some programmers to do that, as well. Especially since that could be a project funded and worked on globally.

Re:Regional licensing agreements?

[ozmanjusri]

I'm pretty certain that stating "Buy from the US" can be viewed as a blessing on the Grey Import business.

Actually no. Adobe's Paul Robson made that clear. "If you purchase your Adobe product in the US, we’re not obligated to provide you a warranty. We want you to buy from us."

This is not new to us, it's been going on for years. The gougers have variously blamed retailers, market size, freight costs, warranty differences, rents, taxes, wages, penalty rates and importation and transport costs for their extortionate prices. None of it comes close to explaining their huge markups.

There are no valid excuses.

They're overcharging because they can. Because they're being allowed to use geo-blocking to stop Australians from buying from their websites. Because local retail channels are heavily controlled to block competition. Because their customers are no longer being given the options of competing products.

The market has clearly failed to self-regulate and as a result, deserves government intervention.

Bit** please

[dafradu]

Australia Adobe store - Creative Suite 6 Master Collection - US$ 4,530.00
Brazil Adobe store - Creative Suite 6 Master Collection - US$ 5,055.00

Brazil, where a car made here is sold for R$ 56.210, and the same car, but with more optionals, is exported to Mexico (over 7000 Km away) and is sold there for R$ 25.800. Take that Australia!