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 In March 2007 Adobe began pre-selling the new CS3 packages. Pro-Imaging members immediately spotted the price discrepancy between the US retail versions and those being sold in the UK and Europe.
Adobe staffers were contacted immediately in an orchestrated campaign.
Many members contacted Adobe staffers directly using variations of the following letter:
Dear Adobe,
As an avid and professional long term user of your products, I, like many professional colleagues in several countries outside of the USA, notably Britain and Europe, have finally been forced to write and say how absolutely appalled we are with the huge pricing anomalies of your Creative Suite products between our countries. There is no question about the sheer excellence of your products, so our grievance is purely and simply the extraordinary differences in pricing between the US and elsewhere which penalises thousands of users simply because of where we live.
Most of us can now easily download upgrades from the web without any need for packaging, original CDs or posting. There is no high cost of doing e-commerce and electronic business with the UK or the rest of the world when it is simply a matter of downloading from servers, USA or not. We simply make payment, subject to our own taxes of course and download from your servers. You simply bank the money, it makes no difference to Adobe whether we are in the US, the UK or anywhere else in the world.
If the differences were only slight it could perhaps be due to certain trade laws but we are seeing enormous variations which are just too hard to understand let alone justify.
Observed prices as follows:
Here is the comparison - no sales tax and using Yahoo UK's up to date exchange calculator:
Sterling Prices US UK
CS3 Upgrade £224 £465
CS3 Full £916 £1,409
Dollar Prices US UK
CS3 Upgrade $440 $912
CS3 Full $1,799 $2,766
Many of us have supported your company and products for years and many of us have also been free beta testers for your products to offer feedback and advice on bugs, needs and glitches.
In this modern day and age, discrimination of any sort is frowned upon but as we all know is still goes on. However, with a company the size of yours it is very surprising that you so blatantly adopt such an attitude.
On several world wide lists, there is a lot of talk about your unfair pricing policies and it is true to say that your public image is definitely being eroded by this latest fiasco.
Many of us have continued to persuade friends, colleagues and students to buy full legal copies of your software but with such blatant and unnecessary discrimination like this, I start to understand why so many people go down the illegal route!
Respect is two way, we have respect for your products and your intellectual property. I believe we deserve much more respect in return and that Adobe should re-address this disgusting imbalance against Britain and it would seem several other countries.
Yours faithfully
Although the Adobe staff who were involved in writing code were sympathetic to our campaign they were powerless to get anything done about the issue - reinforcing our belief that Adobe that business and marketing issues take priority over technology and customer benefits at Adobe.
The campaign has therefore become a little more aggressive...
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