[LINK] sigh

stephen at melbpc.org.au stephen at melbpc.org.au
Mon Feb 11 20:44:20 AEDT 2013


"Microsoft, Apple, Adobe summoned by Australia pricing inquiry"

Lower house committee summoned the three firms to explain why Australian 
customers paid more for same products 

AFP First Published: Mon, Feb 11 2013. 01 52 PM IST
<http://www.livemint.com/Industry/Microsoft-Apple-Adobe-summoned-by-
Australia-pricing-inquir.html>


Sydney: Global technology giants Microsoft, Apple and Adobe were Monday 
ordered to appear before a pricing inquiry examining the often-higher 
cost of tech goods in Australia compared with other economies.

The lower house committee holding the probe, which was launched last May, 
said it had summoned the trio to appear at a public hearing next month to 
explain why Australian customers paid more for the same products.

“The committee is looking at the impacts of prices charged to Australian 
consumers for IT products,” it said in a statement.

“Australian consumers often pay much higher prices for hardware and 
software than people in other countries.”

The inquiry was set up to examine claims by consumer advocacy groups of 
price discrimination for Australians on technology, with music, games, 
software, and gaming and computer hardware costing substantially more 
than elsewhere.

According to consumer lobby group Choice, Australians pay on average 73% 
more on iTunes downloads than the US, 69% more on computer products and a 
staggering 232% more on PC game downloads.

Office software was on average 34% more expensive in Australia when 
compared with the US, Choice said in its submission to the inquiry, with 
hardware coming in at 41% more expensive.

One software package was Aus$8,665 (US$8,939) more expensive to buy in 
Australia than the US — a  gap that Choice described as “particularly 
unreasonable”.

“For this amount, it would be cheaper to employ someone for 46 hours at 
the price of $21.30 per hour and fly them to the US and back at your 
expense—twice,” Choice said.

Choice only did comparisons with the US, not Asia-Pacific economies.
Apple and Microsoft have both made their own submissions to the 
committee, arguing that prices differed across jurisdictions due to a 
range of factors including freight, local taxes and duties and foreign 
exchange rates.

The Australian Information Industry Association, which represents Adobe 
and other major ICT firms, has submitted to the committee that the “costs 
of doing business in Australia are higher than in many other countries”..
--

Cheers,
Stephen



More information about the Link mailing list