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Overseas Office 2007 pricing comparison

How does Office 2007 pricing in other countries like Australia compare with the charge in the USA?

Down in Australia they are screaming about the price of Vista and Office 2007.

We’re obliged to David Firth for an analysis of comparable pricing between Vista in the USA and ‘down under’, which shows a price difference between US and Australia of more than 25% in some cases.

We’ve done a similar analysis for Office 2007, the Aussie pricing was announced after David’s article.

We used an exchange rate generous in Microsoft’s favor (Microsoft would get better than ‘credit card’ xrates), assumed a higher shipping cost than the company could negotiate and added the Aussie retail tax (GST at 10%). If anything, we’ve weighed the calculations in favor of Microsoft.

Aussie customers are paying between 12% and 21% higher than the equivalent US pricing which isn’t outrageous but still a nice little extra earner.































































Office 2007 Product

Official US Price

US Price converted to Aussie dollars plus

Official AUD$ price

Difference

Home and Student

US $149

$222

$249

12%

Standard

US $399

$586

$690

18%

Standard upgrade

US $239

$353

$399

13%

Small Business

US $449

$658

$749

14%

Small Business – upgrade

US $279

$411

$499

21%

Professional

US $499

$731

$849

16%

Professional – upgrade

US $329

$484

$549

13%

Ultimate

US $679

$993

$1,150

16%

Ultimate – upgrade

US $539

$789

$939

19%

Calculation Details:
Interbank Exchange Rate at 9 November: 1.29708 plus 2% to simulate higher credit card rate.
Australian retail tax (GST): 10%
Additional Shipping (over)estimate: $5.00

Of course, each Microsoft subsidiary charges the highest price they think possible for their region. And with fixed prices they are taking some exchange rate risk. Just as customers are entitled to compare the different pricing of the same product.

There are different costs associated with selling software in various markets but the Internet and globalization has reduced those variations markedly.

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