Dollar surge helps software vendors soak customers

So it appears that other vendors might just have bought themselves an insurance policy ahead of Microsoft potentially (or, even inevitably) surging ahead of the competition in the V game.

But, by pitting US prices against the rest of the world, vendors could paint themselves into a tight corner where they stand accused of profiteering, creaming off as much as they can before titan Microsoft enters the ring.

VMware strongly disagreed with such a notion. The firm's senior EMEA partner director Matt Piercy told El Reg:

"It takes a long time to implement a price change like that so we've made a decision to do this, we're gonna stick with the decision and if things go back the other way then we can re-look at this, but right now we have no choice to do this," he said. "The change hasn't happened yet so at this point in time I think it would be wrong of anybody to accuse us of profiteering."

We asked Piercy if channel players can expect to see further price increases in the coming months. "There's nothing else in the plan at the moment, nothing at all," he said.

Bada bing bada boom

There is one glaring problem with VMware, Citrix and anyone else for that matter basing their rationale for price rises on the limp dollar: US investment bank Goldman Sachs late last week adjusted its outlook on the currency by abandoning its ten-year long "bearish stance".

"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," said Goldman Sachs, according to Reuters.

Meanwhile, the Euro traded at a near-six month low at $1.4779 last Thursday, just as the US dollar turned a corner. It has gained more than five per cent against the Euro so far this month, reaching its highest since February. The pound has been sliding against the dollar for the last fortnight or so.

Having moved the currency goal posts before the forex turmoil, the vendors could, if they wanted, try to justify further foreign currency price rises by saying the Euro and Sterling just ain't buying as many dollars as they used to.

Oh, and did we mention that Microsoft looks set any day now to lift virtual machine licensing restrictions to allow the ability to move a VM freely about physical servers? ®