Loving the USD vs GBP rate at the moment.....

We need creative suite CS 2.

The UK price for CS2.3 Standard is £828.
The US price (after conversion) for CS2.3 Premium is £631

It sucks big style. And even though it's available as a download, you can't buy from the US site in the UK.

It's a joke. We've just had a rant at the sales person on the phone, she said it was a very common thing people moaned about.

I'm not paying over $800.00 more (the UK->US price difference for CS2.3 premium full) for exactly the same software.

Find a USA based proxy

I've done this a couple of times with people on the board. Saved me a tonne!

Can I help?

- Jon in SF, CA

That extra amount is most likely taxes. So I would call it the "great government ripoff" instead.

Almost everything is cheaper in the US. I'm in the market for a MacBook Pro. Here in Europe, it'll cost me 2000 euros, which is about USD $2660. In the US, it'll cost me USD $1850 for the same product. Guess where I'm buying it?

It's more than that. The UK duty rate on software is I think 3.5%. Assuming zero delivery costs for a download, then the UK-taxed version of the US price would be 631+3.5% + VAT = 767. So there's still a big discrepancy.

Thanks for the offer. I will have to talk to my boss. The main problem would be getting the money over to you without being raped on the exchange rate!

The really funny thing is that we could buy a ticket over to the US, fly out, buy it, bring it back and it'd still be cheaper!!

On a mildly related note, say your previous employer gave you an MSDN subscription, which you added to your existing personal .NET passport. Once you left you reminded them on several occasions that said subscription was still active but nothing is done about it. Would it be a sin to grab a copy of XP and Vista for your new home computer? I'm assuming the answer is yes but I thought I'd just ask.

Sin ??? Nahhhhhh!



Cheers

Cris.

Well, the official answer is that it would be about the same level as downloading a serial number off the internet. I suppose whether or not that's a sin to you is a different question.

It might technically be an offence under the Computer Misuse Act:

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1990/Ukpga_19900018_en_2.htm#mdiv1

...depending on whether the access is "unauthorised". However it is more likely to cause the subscriber to contravene the subscription contract, by allowing somebody other than an employee to have access. Our Action Pack subscription has quite a few restrictions - the software should not even be used outside the company's premises.

Technically, anything off MSDN is supposed to only be used for developing something, with the exception being one copy of office for personal use. So if you grab Vista, make sure to open notepad and type out "echo Hi World" and save it as hello.bat.

I still have access to MSDN from my HP job, and still use it. It was quite clear that the benefit of it wasn't something that ended when the job did. The handy thing is I also caught the renewal cycle before I left. My MSDN expires January 2011. That should help me keep up my ability to run the few MS products I do, while still not paying MS directly. Only time I have technically paid for a license of Windows out of my own pocket was when I bought a Dell laptop, and gave up on fighting them over a refund. Other then that, I've gotten my Windows and Office copies from their roadshows or other events.

Also I seem to remember that you still get to have a license to use the software you got from MSDN, under the same terms (only for development etc), even when your MSDN subscriptions lapses. You just stop getting new stuff.

How that applies to people whose company bought the subscription though, I don't know.

Am I the only one here that has a license for all their installs of XP, but still actually uses a "stolen" (i.e. acquired from a former customer) corporate copy of the XP CD, just because it makes life easier...

We're just about to buy CS2 Standard too, found it for £359.99 +vat:

http://misco.co.uk/productinformation/~96803~WW~/Illustrator%20CS%202%20WINDOWS%20FULL.htm

That's just Illustrator though, not creative suite!

Sorry, tes, appears that all we need is Illustrator, twas the CS2 bit that confused me.