Adobe has released a new version of Acrobat, its software for creating PDF documents, but UK customers can expect to pay more than twice as much as their US counterparts.
Acrobat 9 comes bundled with Creative Suite 3.3 (CS3.3) — also announced on Wednesday — or as a standalone purchase. According to Adobe, Acrobat 9 now includes native support for the company's Flash technology, so web pages with multimedia content can be converted into PDF documents. Those wishing to view multimedia embedded in such documents will be able to do with version 9 of Adobe's free Reader application, expected to appear at the start of July.
The Acrobat suite also enables users to "co-navigate" a PDF document in real-time using Adobe's hosted services, and allows several media types to be combined into one 'PDF portfolio' — Adobe gives the example of charts, spreadsheets, images and video being combined into one PDF file.
Prices for UK customers are more than double those for US customers. Acrobat Pro Extended costs £727 in the UK, compared to $699 (£355) in the US. Acrobat Pro costs £499 in the UK and $449 (£228) in the US, while Acrobat Standard costs £311 in the UK and $299 (£152) in the US. All are available for purchase now.
As for Adobe CS3.3, the Design Premium flavour now bundles Fireworks CS3 and — for UK customers at least — is now available at a 10 percent discount compared with its version 3 predecessor. That puts CS3.3 Design Premium at a cost of £1,467 in the UK, compared with its $1,799 (£915) price tag in the US.
Last July, when Adobe released CS3, it suggested that the discrepancies between UK and US prices were the result of call centres being more expensive to run in Europe, along with the cost of putting on the Adobe Live customer event.
Talkback
>>it suggested that the discrepancies between UK and US prices were the result of call centres being more expensive to run in Europe, along with the cost of putting on the Adobe Live customer event.
Does anybody at Adobe really think anyone believes this lame excuse for even a fraction of a second? Adobe are ripping off their European customers, it's profiteering plain and simple. They've only got themselves to blame if pirating of their software dramatically increases.
There has always been a price difference on Adobe products between the U.S. and Europe, but this has now gotten totally out of hand. This large of a difference is unjustifiable.
So, the cost of an event is part of the reason UK prices are doubled? are we to assume this event didn't take place in the US? how about those customers who aren't interested or didn't attend the EVENT?
So, UK call centres cost more to run, is that because UK consumers use the support more often or is it that UK employees demand higher wages?
whatever the reason, I'd think the strength of European currencies against the Dollar would make up for it.
Its a strange world we live in; BMW, a German car, costs less in the US than in the UK and yet US Software which requires less logistics (in some cases none) costs UK consumers more than double what it costs the american consumer. Those call centres, if we could outsource them all, everything would cost less!
Can you outsource events?!