Most costs by an American software company will be in dollars, so not subject to course fluctuations: it's not like they're importing Cech bits, French for-loops or handcrafted Delft subroutines.

Outsourcing is most likely to India, however, so that's the relevant currency not the Euro. I haven't checked the fluctuations, but if it's rising then the cost is going up for them. [... think...] It would equally affect their US costs not just oversees, I guess that's an oversight somewhere.

Clearly if the dollar falls again, they'll lower their Euro prices again as they surely did before? Hm.

Weak.

Well, traditionally a weak currency was seen as meaning less imports (due to relatively higher prices), but more exports (coz your locally produced wares are relatively cheaper).

In software, it means less imports and less exports (maybe because the exported goodies are produced in Bangalore in the first place and there is just a markup on them when the "Made in America" logo goes on the box).

With the economic outlook worsening here too, price hikes are going to result in increased customer interest, I'm sure.

Considering that the pound is now at $1.86 and sliding fast (an unheard of 11 straight days of drops) and is at it's LOWEST against the dollar for 2 years, these company's reasons are transparently untrue.

If currency rates were the real reason for increasing their prices, they would've done it a year or more ago - when the dollar was much weaker than it is today. In fact their true and only reason for raising prices s because everyone else is - and are being allowed to get away with it.

Well gosh, they would say that, wouldn't they ?

So, when the dollar rises, thery're gonna LOWER their prices in non-USD markets?

Yeah, right.

Can I ask the Register the comment "The price change was the first major tactical play made by the company's new CEO, Paul Maritz". You know this to be factually true? You spoke to someone at VMware who confirmed this decision was made by Paul Martiz? Or are just saying that to make your story sound more edgy?

They're just milking existing customers because they don't expect to have many new sales. Currency is just an excuse.

"Now the valuation and growth-driven improvements that we have been observing for a while have reached the point where they notably improve the medium to long-term outlook for the dollar,"

IMHO no, USA Corp is trading at a hefty and increasing loss, has milked the bond market for all it can, no idea how it will ever return investors their money back, let alone a profit. We'll see how it fairs under the next CEO, but the current CEO is something of a 'Darl'. That 'things are so bad they can only get better' thinking is how short sellers make their money on the falling edge.

BTW, I told you Russia would accept the withdrawal agreement, but not withdraw. I told you they would accuse Georgia of failing to withdraw (they accuse their opponents of the things they themselves are guilty of, as a misdirection). I will tell you again that they will not withdraw.

They will take the Baku pipeline, put pressure on the middle Asian breakaway states that use it and bully Iran (already weakened by sanctions), it will stress the oil supply further and this will negatively affect the US$.

'Darl' will do nothing but mouth-off like the idiot he is.

What the flip's going on with the USD to GBP exchange rate? the GBP value is suddenly dropping against the USD! now we're gonna get even more screwed in the UK, it was bad enough before but without the strong GBP rates it means importing suddenly got more expensive again.

Past 120 days GBP/USD graph http://www.x-rates.com/d/USD/GBP/graph120.html

I managed to get a £250,000 project stopped before we wasted any money after they anounced this price rise then came back with updated quotes (after it was put to the board).

Citrix has stuffed themselves.

Your goddamn strong currencies are making it harder for us to do international business. US!! Well, we'll show you! We're going to raise prices outside US dollar land! How do you like *them* apples, huh? HUH?!

<emote action="stick out tongue"> Nyerrrrrrgh! </emote>

</yank accent>

This is just a way to export their inflation.

Apparently, they are unable to raise their prices on the internal market.

Is that as the pound/euro is higher, we are paying the Indian software companies more, so that they are demanding more from the US too, making their production costs higher.

Perhaps it's time to go back to developing inhouse. Then selling to Europeans means 150-200% more profit than selling in the US!

> Mike Laverick

"Can I ask the Register about the comment:

"The price change was the first major tactical play made by the company's new CEO, Paul Maritz".

You know this to be factually true? You spoke to someone at VMware who confirmed this decision was made by Paul Martiz? Or are just saying that to make your story sound more edgy?"

Can I ask how this is related to Microsoft?

Microsoft have had a bad-hair d..uh..year or five but why would it suddenly impact these three companies overnight all at the same time? Or didn't it?

Check prices of Adobe software from US and from EU (or anywhere else in the world), and you will see a price hike in the size of more then 150 %.

Don't believe me?

Adobe Creative Suite 3.3 Master Collection 2.499 USD in US online store

£ 1969 in UK ex. vat = 3,675.02 USD todays exchange rate (147 %)

€ 2,799.00 in Europe ex VAT = 4,112.12 USD todays exchange (164 %)

Go check with the product of your preference...

When a large percentage of products for a company are produced in one language and dozen languages are to follow for smaller percentage of buyers, this means individual language support is more expensive because of the increased number of engineers who are working the projects.

For example, if there is a product made in China, where 80% of paying consumers are Chinese, and they need to be concerned about an English version, which will sell 20% of their product - there is the additional overhead of supporting English, which means the profit margin is smaller and the company may even take a loss, in order to make their product viable to be purchased in large multi-national corporations (to satisfy a check-box on a requirements document for a capability that may or may not even be used.)

Have you ever read user manuals that were translated from Chinese into other languages? If you need to do that with high quality software, the expectation that translation is done properly is higher, and much more work is done to make the results understandable.

Single language is always cheaper to develop, maintain, and take service calls from, than multi-language software.

Western Europe is, at least, paying for their development & support staffing required for multi-language capabilities through increased software fees.

Piracy in The East (exception of Japan), Eastern Europe, Middle East, Africa, and South America is so rampant - that other multi-lingual nations are paying the price in increased fees, unfortunately.

Software prices would come way down if there was less piracy on the multi-lingual versions of software, and would come down even more if there was only one language with a simple character set (vs strokes or words that need to be re-written when a particular mark appears later in the word as someone is typing.)

One should expect that additional complex features would cost more by the consumer.

Blaming additional cost 100% on exchange rates is weak.

Blaming additional cost on a company for profiteering is weaker.

and it doesn't make sense. If the dollar is down, you already get more dollars for every foreign sale.

Don't you all just buy your software from US websites, at a lower price? If not, why?

Pope found to be Catholic And A Bear was seen shitting in the woods.This is not news.So software is going to be even MORE expensive talk about cutting ones nose off to spite your face.HAHAHAHAHA not funny.

I've for several years now avoided buying software from the likes of Adobe and Corel precisely because of their gouging on the USD/GBP pricing differential.

I make sure to tell them to get lost and why every time they send my company marketing information. If everyone in the UK did this type of thing they might suddenly get more sensible.