In article <1xtek7rdbej3q$.dlg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Erik Funkenbusch <erik@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> But it's ALWAYS been like that in UK. Doesn't matter what the exchange
> >> rate, you can bet your bottom £ that MS software in UK is the same
> >> number of £s as it is $ in USA....
> >
> > A monopoly is a nice thing (to Microsoft). They can charge as much as people
> > are able -- not willing -- to pay.
>
> I was in London just a few weeks ago. *EVERYTHING* i saw was virtually the
> same price in pounds as the same product was in dollars, be it a candy bar,
> a TV, a Computer, a book, a CD, etc..
>
> Being a monopoly has nothing to do with it, otherwise every other product
> wouldn't have the same problem.
Last time I had occasion to look into this, it seemed to vary. For lower
priced items, the US and UK prices were usually the same numerically,
but as you went up, there was more of a tendency for the UK price to be
numerically lower, but usually not by enough to make up for the exchange
rate.
I think the sellers try to hide this a bit, by offering different
configurations in different countries. For example, at Dell's US and UK
sites, in the home section, the first page that lists the various
families with "starting at" prices has a lot where the US and UK price
are numerically the same. But one line I checked out that started
numerically the same had 4 models available in the US, but only two in
the UK. The lowest end UK one in that line corresponded to one of the
middle ones in the US line. Still, if you took the US price, converted
at a representative exchange rate, and added VAT (which was included in
the Dell prices), the UK prices came out to around 30-50% higher than US
prices.
--
--Tim Smith
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