Re: showing code in vb2005

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Mike Williams wrote:
Yes. Microsoft, or any other manufactureer, can choose not to sell a single copy of a product to anyone in the entire world if they choose to do so. But once they have caused the product to enter the retail chain they have no right whatsoever to dictate to any retailer the price he may sell it on for. In fact if the manufacturer attempts to force a retailer to sell to the public at a specific price they are breaking the law, both here in the UK and also in America. I don't know what the situation is over there in Canada (Ottawa) where you appear to live, but I assume it is similar.

Yes, it is.

there are such things as import & export regulations,
sales of products by country or even province are
not at all uncommon.

You're talking really silly now, Robert. If there was any regulation which prohibited the sale of Vista or VB 2008 or whatever to the UK then we would not be able to buy it, and nobody in the UK would be using Windows Vista (which I sometimes think would be a good thing!).

Hehehe, agreed! But as far as I know, there's absolutely nothing that prevents a manufacturer from saying "only sell this particular version in these countries and nowhere else".

Maybe it's not binding, I don't know, but they can certainly SAY it. And if that's the case, then maybe it's not Amazon collaborating with MS, so much as it's simply them not caring and following whatever MS told them to do.

Micro$oft are only too happy to sell a copy of Vista to someone living in the UK. In fact they would be extremely pleased if every single person living here bought a copy. They just want to charge us twice as much for it!!! There is no valid excuse whatsoever for doing that, and I hate them for doing it.

And I agree completely. There certainly might be reasons for increased prices, such as additional shipping costs, duties, etc., but double the price sounds way out of line to me.

While we're on the topic, it also happens that bikes, cameras,
and any number of other things I've heard of over the years
are roughly twice the price in the UK compared to anywhere
else.

Yes. Lots of multinational companies are performing the same scam. But that does not make it right. Lots of multinational companies also use child labour in many countries, using children who are virtually prisoners and who badly fed and badly housed and who are paid miniscule amounts of money (and sometimes none at all!) for their labour. But the fact that lots of them are doing it does not make it right.

And if indeed it IS a scam, as I suspect it is, then it's something that needs to be set right. Having said that, however, the fact that it's so pervasive makes me at least consider whether there's something else at play (like the previously-mentioned taxes, duties, shipping, etc.)...at least in part.

Perhaps NEITHER MS or Amazon have anything to
do with it, and it has more to do with duties, taxes, or something like that.

That is absolute rubbish. There are a number of different rates of VAT and / or import duty here in the UK depending on the type of goods, but on computer software or software licences it is the standard 17.5%, which I assume is something similar to the duty in America or Canada. So even if there was no duty whatsoever on computer software in America and Canada (which I seriously doubt) then we would be rquired to pay just 17.5 % more "off the shelf" for the product, not 100% more. And that 17.5% is assuming that there is no duty at all in Amerca and Canade, which I do not think is true.

I'm assuming that you're correct. As I said, I think 100% more sounds extremely high for any legitimate sale. But the fact that it's so pervasive makes me curious to know if there ARE legitimate reasons for it to be that high. The only way to know that, however, would be to trace the costs from manufacturer to distributor to store to consumer, and I haven't got the slightest skill in that area whatsoever. :)

Not saying that I know or even believe that to be the case,
but in the absence of definitive proof, it's something I have
to take into consideration, at least.

Well you can stop taking it into consideration now . . .
> http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/staff/finance/topics/vat/vat-&-software.cfm

Well, that covers the final sale of the product.

It's still POSSIBLE that somehow it costs MS some 80% more to create/ship/whatever a version for the UK, but realistically, neither you nor I nor any other reasonable person would believe it likely. I'm just allowing for that small (probably infinitesimal) chance that they actually have good reason to charge that much, other than for nefarious reasons.

I was going to carry on some more with this conversation but I've just glanced at your next post in this thread in which you clearly agree that what Micro$oft is doing is wrong, so I think it might be wise to leave it at that (at least for this thread).

:)

All I was really saying when this thread started out is that you haven't proven that Amazon is deliberately doing anything wrong here. AFAIK, right or wrong, MS has the right to change their prices based on the country they're shipping to. Amazon may well simply be following MS' dictates without caring about the why of it. So from my perspective, you should be blaming everything ENTIRELY on MS, unless and until you have proof that Amazon is complicit in this beyond following MS' regulations, as they might well do for any other seller.


Rob
.

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