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| Author | Content |
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| Ridcully Feb 11, 2013 6:30 PM EDT |
Quoting:Apple, Adobe and Microsoft are good companies, with a lot of good people working for them. I am afraid my gorge rose when I got to this part of the article. Those three companies are not "good" companies, they are successful companies who believe that their size and power allows them to do as they will. Conversely, I have no doubt that there are "good" people working for them. Currently, our Australian dollar buys 1.04 US dollars (and it has been much higher) so that US products should be almost exactly the same price in Australia as they are in the USA.....sure, it costs to get the item out here, but that's a function of postage/transport. However the huge increase in cost to the Australian consumer is not the mark of a "good company", it's the stigma of a "greedy" company which uses its position to take as much as it can. If I were Adobe, Apple or Microsoft, I wouldn't try to muck about with Parliamentary requests any longer. So far, the three of them have shown utter contempt for Australian parliamentary protocols and that can be extremely dangerous because a Parliamentary investigatory committee has enormous powers if it cares to exercise them. Greed may be good in the halls of the companies concerned, but it's most unwelcome as an ethical stance in Australia, especially at the moment where we have a massive corruption inquiry in full display on the news each day. Oooops......my apologies.......I intended to have the title: "Successful" and "Good" are not the same but it didn't seem to go across..... |
| caitlyn Feb 11, 2013 6:41 PM EDT |
Don't worry, the "Untitled" title adds a sense of mystery to the thread :) I can't disagree with anything else you've written, FWIW. |
| dinotrac Feb 11, 2013 7:05 PM EDT |
You Australians are all alike. You think your silly little laws and your people matter. That's what happens when you spend all of your time handing upside down on the wrong side of the world. You should be happy that those companies are willing to go to the trouble to flip the bits around on their software so that it can run on your silly upside-down computers. Guess I told you! |
| BernardSwiss Feb 11, 2013 8:23 PM EDT |
@Ridcully Actually, we have the same problem here in Canada. The official explanations always revolve around transport, customs, supposed "excessive" Canadian regulations -- but none of those excuses really holds up. (Book prices are probably the clearest "red flag"). Businesses and distributors have simply gotten so used to historically being able to charge higher prices in this "different market" that it's become just another form of market segmentation. People who care, and can, mostly go on regular shopping trips across the border, and save ~40%. Manufacturers who really don't like this, have simply changed the rules to prevent it (eg. auto manufacturers have taken to making new automotive warranties void if the car ownership is taken across the border -- IIRC this required a change in legislation). It's pretty shameless. Most Canadians live within 100 miles of the border. It's not like there's a few thousand miles of ocean separating us. Even the general public is asking questions". A "reasonable profit" is no longer deemed sufficient. in corporate circles, if "unreasonable profits" can be had simply by exploiting the customers. |
| Ridcully Feb 11, 2013 9:00 PM EDT |
@BernardSwiss.....Unfortunately, this country has a history of being overcharged under the single rule of: "Stupid Australians, they'll happily pay anything we care to charge." So there is more than a grain of very serious truth in Dino's comment above. An article in this morning's newspaper "The Australian" has exposed the extent of this greed displayed by Microsoft, Apple and Adobe because it contains information that has just been published by the Australian Consumer Affairs Organisation magazine called Choice. The latest issue of Choice states that the above three companies are pricing their software and hardware items at 50% above American prices. This isn't just "rip-off", this is staggering and disgusting overpricing to a captive market. They are doing it because they can, and the average consumer simply does not know just how much they are being literally fleeced. It's so very sad that the ethics of these three companies preclude fair trading (or at least that is how I view them in Australia) to the extent that it is going to take Parliamentary action to stop them from unfairly targetting Australians to make utterly obscene profits. |
| tracyanne Feb 11, 2013 10:20 PM EDT |
I think they should charge way more for their products |
| Ridcully Feb 11, 2013 11:52 PM EDT |
@tracyanne......oh, you couldn't do that TA. That would mean that almost no-one except the really rich could purchase their products and that would be disastrous - no cash flows, no vendor lock-ins.......they might even become bankrupt and disappear ........ hmmmmm. Lemme think about this a little more. |
| nmset Feb 12, 2013 3:51 AM EDT |
Australia attacks a fundamental of capitalism, fascinating, can hardly believe it ! Australia should rather create and build competitive products. |
| Ridcully Feb 12, 2013 4:56 AM EDT |
@nmset......I wouldn't have put it that way. Australia thoroughly supports the concept of capitalism and a free society. The problems arise when companies have a free hand to do as they choose and that is where our Australian Consumer Affairs Commission steps in. Microsoft, Apple and Adobe have every right to sell their products in Australia to those who wish to purchase them and I am the first to agree. What I disagree with is the rampant price fixing that these three companies are indulging in to the detriment of the Australian IT consumer......and it seems that the Australian Parliament agrees with this concept as well. Hence my comments about company ethics in my posting above. Linux and FOSS demand an even playing field......these proprietary companies are trying to sabotage that.....And that, my very good LXer friend, is something I think you would heartily agree is wrong. Australia does innovate and at least one of our products/inventions is now the cornerstone of IT......there is a CSIRO patent involving WiFi.....I cannot remember what it is, but it is there and all of our laptop, smartphone wireless technology depends on it. Much of our innovation is in non-IT areas like cochlear implants, new ways of getting more power out of solar cells, etc.....I haven't kept abreast of some of these developments so this is off the top of my head and I may be wrong.... |
| caitlyn Feb 12, 2013 10:42 AM EDT |
I would point out that when it comes to prescription drugs Canadians often pay much less than Americans for products made in the United States yet it is illegal for us to buy from Canadian pharmacies. (People do it anyway.) Then there is the interesting phenomenon of some Israeli products being cheaper in the U.S. than in Israel. I've never understood how all this "free trade" is working. It certainly isn't free. |
| gary_newell Feb 12, 2013 10:53 AM EDT |
In the UK people constantly bemoan our inclusion in the EU but being in the EU has it's benefits. Anti-competitive companies are set upon by the EU and because we are part of a multitude of states that can force stock off the shelves the bigger companies do have to take notice. Remember Microsoft being forced to advertise other browser choices? In the UK we have a cartel of oil companies that charge very similar rates for Petrol and Diesel. When the prices creep up and up all the government does is say "We will need to investigate whether there is any price fixing going on" and the petrol prices instantly drop for a while until the cartel thinks it is ok to start raising them again. The best thing the Australians can do as a nation is to invite the big players in again to discuss the pricing of goods and any company that fails to cooperate instantly becomes subjected to a long and intense scrutiny of its financial affairs within Australia, analysing all accounts, payments to directors, directors taxes etc etc. Falling foul of the revenue and customs department is something no company wants. |
| Fettoosh Feb 12, 2013 12:19 PM EDT |
I am surprised no one suggested moving to FOSS/Linux software to counter the sleazy shenanigans of big corps. Don't the Aussies know such a thing does exist? All the government have to do is announce having the intention to go with FOSS and see how those companies react. |
| jdixon Feb 12, 2013 12:29 PM EDT |
> I've never understood how all this "free trade" is working. It certainly isn't free. You're not supposed to have noticed that, Caitlyn. :) > Don't the Aussies know such a thing does exist? By and large, from what both TA and Ridcully have said, Aussie goverenment agencies are thoroughly in the pocket of Microsoft and the other proprietary vendors. |
| Ridcully Feb 12, 2013 5:38 PM EDT |
For Fettoosh and Jdixon........The lack of serious moves to FOSS by governments in Australia is a sad and very effective result of the "Barrier of Death" that Microsoft has managed to put in place in the IT sections of both State and Federal governments....... State and Federal IT bureaucracies are staffed by people who are aware ONLY of the existence of Microsoft software solutions and possibly Apple, and the latter only if you are lucky. There are Microsoft moles at very high levels in all of these departments who ensure that FOSS solutions never get up off the table, let alone be considered. I have personal experience with precisely this situation in Queensland, and by extension, I am sure it is in place in all other states and the federal government. You can also surmise that any newcomers into these IT departments are carefully vetted to ensure that they maintain the Microsoft status quo. And yes, Jdixon, your last sentence above is as accurate an assessment as I have seen. Gary_newell suggests that: Quoting:The best thing the Australians can do as a nation is to invite the big players in again to discuss the pricing of goods and any company that fails to cooperate instantly becomes subjected to a long and intense scrutiny of its financial affairs within Australia, analysing all accounts, payments to directors, directors taxes etc etc. Falling foul of the revenue and customs department is something no company wants. This is precisely the starting point that the federal parliamentary inquiry is making. Apple, Microsoft and Adobe are now recorded here as previously being requested to appear in front of the inquiry with results that indicate that the companies looked on the Australian government parliamentarians as fools. (Well, given the quality of most of them, they are.....but we are not allowed to say that are we ?) What Appple/Microsoft/Adobe did was: stone-wall, provide irrelevant information, plead commercial in confidence and generally give the two-fingered salute to the government inquiry.......Now I will happily admit our politicians aren't generally bright, but they DO know when their government institution is being abused by foreigners who depend on Australian good will to do business here........and so the present situation has developed in which these companies have now been subpoenaed to appear before the parliamentary inquiry and no mucking about fellers !!! But I will be the first to agree that this is only the starting point in a long, long process and whether or not the federal government has the courage to continue down the road they have opened is quite another matter. The last thing I want to see is a pat on the wrist. And I'd agree.......the best way to send shudders down the spines of these three money hungry and unethical companies is for Australia to move steadily to FOSS.....Ain't gonna happen in the short term for the reasons I have given above.....but as the younger generation moves upwards, it is going to be harder and harder for the moles to suppress Android and similar......it will happen......but very slowly in my opinion. |
| Ridcully Feb 12, 2013 7:49 PM EDT |
For all those who would like to see an actual list of the Apple and Microsoft (and others) rip-offs in Australia, here you go: http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/apple-is-ripping-... |
| Ridcully Feb 14, 2013 12:51 AM EDT |
This latest news is almost at the point of : I don't believe this but here are the facts and it's true. http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/adobe-chief... This shows exactly what Adobe is doing in Australia. Quoting:Adobe's Creative Suite Master 6 Collection, which in Australia costs $4334, carries a price of $US2599 ($A2509) in the US, leaving a price disparity of about $A1825. Advertisement "It's still cheaper to fly from here in Sydney to Los Angeles, buy it there, and come home. By doing that I'd save $601, and I'd get Virgin Australia frequent flyer points, too," wrote Gizmodo Australia's Luke Hopewell. I repeat, this isn't getting a decent price for a product, this is plain racketeering. Ethical ? Adobe is simply the epitome of the "Greed is Good" stance.....this almost leaves Microsoft looking clean and pure. Maybe. |
| Bob_Robertson Feb 14, 2013 4:34 PM EDT |
I just can't get up-in-arms over people who pay for that crap. It's their choice to pay or to find something else. |
| Ridcully Feb 14, 2013 5:07 PM EDT |
Perhaps not Bob......but fair is fair, and what Adobe and the rest are doing most definitely is not fair. Even if you can say "You should use FOSS and get all its benefits", you are nevertheless talking about firms that have spent perhaps a decade or more training their staff to use certain software products and shifting from those proprietary products to a FOSS equivalent is not a matter of snapping fingers and making it so. It takes time and money - I only have to think of my difficulties in transferring from Photoshop to GIMP to understand that problem. There is another aspect too.....Right now here in "down under" there is a huge surge in examining pricing and marketing structures and much more willingness to consider that fleecing the customers in the name of excessive profits is just not the correct thing to do. You can consider proprietary software "crap" if you like and I tend to agree about at least some of it, but not all of it is rubbish. As you say, it's their choice to pay or find something else, but there is a world of difference between a fair price and a racketeering price. |
| caitlyn Feb 14, 2013 5:27 PM EDT |
Quoting:It's their choice to pay or to find something else.With the examples cited so far there are alternatives. What about proprietary software where no good alternative exists? What about the example I cited earlier: prescription drugs, which can be a matter of life or death. Quoting:I only have to think of my difficulties in transferring from Photoshop to GIMP to understand that problem.Lost productivity is one issue. In the enterprise, where the big money is, documents in a proprietary format may be another. Quoting:there is a world of difference between a fair price and a racketeering price.I agree completely. I believe in well regulated free markets, not laissez-fair, anything goes and to hell with anyone who complains free markets. |
| Fettoosh Feb 14, 2013 7:41 PM EDT |
Quoting:Lost productivity is one issue. In the enterprise, where the big money is, documents in a proprietary format may be another. There definitely is some of that, but, lots of times there is way too much exaggeration. |
| Ridcully Feb 14, 2013 10:00 PM EDT |
@Fettoosh......disagree to some extent on "too much exaggeration". For instance, Microsoft Office is now using .docx format......My understanding is that this is an ISO international format and therefore available to anybody. Okay....just try opening a .docx document in LibreOffice.......You can toss a coin to see whether what you get is correctly formatted. And believe me, I am exposed to the problems of LO and .docx all the time .....It's a real pain in the "sit me down area". Now that is just one thing.....Try opening .psd files in GIMP.......Proprietary formats are more than a pain in the backside, they are a principal reason for tossing proprietary software out the Windows. (I am not sorry about that pun :-) ) . @Caitlyn......I believe you are spot on, and your comment about prescription drugs brings me to another point which shows just how much of a stranglehold Microsoft has on Australian Medicine: the Windows-based software that each GP or Specialist absolutely MUST have on their computers in order to function as a doctor....it allows the creation of doctor's prescriptions, recording of data and production of invoices for services as well as plugging into all the relevant pharmaceuticals and their usages, doses etc. This stuff, as you so rightly say, is mission critical......there is, as far as I know, absolutely NO equivalent in the FOSS world. To get rid of it, you would have to start right at the top in the Federal Government's computing services.......ain't gonna happen - or at least not in my lifetime; too much has been invested in it. |
| tracyanne Feb 14, 2013 10:09 PM EDT |
Quoting:For instance, Microsoft Office is now using .docx format......My understanding is that this is an ISO international format and therefore available to anybody. Okay....just try opening a .docx document in LibreOffice. Actually, yes Office Open XML (theroretically .docx) is an international standard, but Microsoft Offices doesnt actually adhere to that standard. |
| BernardSwiss Feb 14, 2013 11:13 PM EDT |
But MS is promising "real soon now". Not that it matters -- the "specification" was over 6000 pages, in its original form, and it wasn't finished growing, yet. Also, the "specifications" often boil down to little more than something along the lines of, "just conform to how-ever Word version 'X' does it". And also, MS contrived to produce a "maliciously compliant" version of ODF that somehow doesn't inter-operate with anyone else's implementation (even though everybody else manages to inter-operate with each other), as a replacement for the pretty decent Office ODF-plugin that MS (under the consent decree auspices) had previously commissioned (Clever Age). It seems plainly unrealistic to hope for meaningful improvement in the field of MS Office document format interoperability -- at least insofar as MS has anything to do with it. |
| Bob_Robertson Feb 15, 2013 9:57 AM EDT |
> What about proprietary software where no good alternative exists? Then either the price is worth it, or it is not. > What about the example I cited earlier: prescription drugs, which can be a matter of life or death. Then either the price is worth it, or it is not. People make that choice every day, choosing to risk their lives driving rather than live closer to work, eating healthy or not, smoking or not. If you don't like their price, then go get it somewhere else. If you cannot get it somewhere else, then maybe you should be asking, "Why not?" These authors and chemists are filling a demand. They will charge what they can get. Anyone in Australia want to buy at the American price? Have it shipped to me, I'll mail it to you for cost plus $50. Get the regulators out of the way so that competition can flourish, and prices will drop. Markets "clear", and that which does not sell at a higher price gets discounted until it does sell. |
| Ridcully Feb 15, 2013 4:18 PM EDT |
@Bob_Robertson......You'll not be surprised to learn that there is already a flourishing "intermediary" mail order business for Australia (located in the USA) which does precisely as you have offered: Quoting:These authors and chemists are filling a demand. They will charge what they can get. Anyone in Australia want to buy at the American price? Have it shipped to me, I'll mail it to you for cost plus $50. The small fee charged by the American "intermediary" mail order business is nothing compared to the huge savings that can be made by using internet purchases. I've seen examples of hardware items sold here for over $200 being obtained via the internet for about $40 including postage. Another example is Amazon. Amazon now detects the country of the person making the order and then may prevent a range of items from being shipped to Australia. Amazon only states that it cannot ship to Australia, but there is reason to believe that these bans by Amazon have been imposed because of complaints made by large "bricks and mortar" retailing chains out here which have also been permitted to price gouge by our government authorities. Amazon's bans are not aimed specifically at pharmaceutical products from what I understand, but rather at clothing and electronic goods. I have personal experience however, of Amazon slapping bans on relatively innocuous items such as books and dvds, and that is very annoying because many titles that I (and others) want attract such few sales in Australia that they do not even reach the shelves of retailers out here. One of the greatest benefits of the internet, in my view, is that it has empowered the common person with tools that allow him or her to fight against extremely oppressive behaviour of large retailing giants and force true marketplace competition onto them. They really don't like being told they have ripped off their customers for decades, nor do they like the disruptive effects to their cosy fiscal arrangements that the internet is producing. As always, there are ways around these disgusting barriers to free trade....but it still does not excuse Adobe et al. for their obscene efforts at price gouging. |
| Bob_Robertson Feb 15, 2013 4:37 PM EDT |
> there are ways around these disgusting barriers to free trade....but it still does not excuse Adobe et al. for their obscene efforts at price gouging. May a thousand black markets bloom. Hopefully, the disgust will inspire software authors and consumers to replace the overpriced dreck with workable F/OSS apps. |
| shem Feb 16, 2013 4:49 AM EDT |
Both on and off topic: Airplane tickets! When looking for the cheapest flights, a return ticket bought online from NorthernEurope to South East Asia is half price compared to the other way around on most airline companies based around the Persian Gulf :/ |
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