Windows Vista - Spot the difference

[WestHej]

Speaking of the OEM version of Vista Ultimate, on overclockers it's selling for £135.11 inc. VAT

The retail version is again £352.49 inc. VAT

[kalniel]

In which case, Microsoft themselves would be in violation of that law. Even if the CDs are pressed outside of the US, the software code has to be exported sometime.

They will have a license for that. We the consumers do not.

[JPreston]

They will have a license for that. We the consumers do not.

How about we band together, form a company and go through whatever certification the US Dept of Defence require of us, then send across some disks from the US?

At this kind of price difference it would probably still be worth it

[kalniel]

Hehe true

[Clunk]

you cant legally export a copy of widows because it contains crypto and it is illegal to take outside the us because it is classed as munitions. if your caught it is a hefty fine.

I dont understand this, could someone explain further please?

[kalniel]

The US bans the export of any cryptography greater than something like 128bit keys, reason being something like crypto is hard to crack therefore could potentially be used to hide something hostile to the states.

(edit: actually I'm way out of date: seems it's been loosened - it is legal to export to all but a few countries:

http://www.rsasecurity.com/rsalabs/node.asp?id=2327

no problems for Vista then )

[Whiternoise]

I'd just to like to say:

1. This is an outrage.. but what do you expect from MS - plus Aria sell it cheaper OEM, so that's ok.

2. I think it shows how good Hexus is that they are happy to follow up this discussion with both Amazon and MS

Well Done Hexus!

[neonplanet40]

And they wonder why people download software......

[Saracen]

In which case, Microsoft themselves would be in violation of that law. Even if the CDs are pressed outside of the US, the software code has to be exported sometime.

There certainly used to be ways round that.

For instance, it was illegal to export code that could be run, but not if it was typed on paper. So, if you expected a disc with code, you committed an offence. If you printed the code out and exported that, you didn't. Which, of course, is exactly what happened.

Not to mention the fact that the policy was farcical in the first place. If I could (and did) go into a high street store, buy a copy of PGP and stick it in my luggage on the flight to Europe, I rather imagine intelligence agents for hostile foreign powers may have come up with the same simple manouevre.

As for MS and UK pricing, there is no doubt some truth in the argument that localisation adds to the costs, as does the cost of regional offices, marketing, support and so on. But the degree to which UK prices exceed US ones is sheer exploitation.

Having said that, MS are far from alone, There are quite a number of software companies that apply a very far from current exchange rate to supplying software to the UK. And some even offer the chance to pay via online services (PayPAL etc) in pounds or dollars. Even from the UK, pay in dollars. You'll perhaps get a slightly less favourable rate from PayPAL than your bank, but still end up paying less that by buying in pounds. And that's where the product code is identical, not localised in any way, and where there are no local sales, marketing, support etc. So there's NO justification for such rip-off pricing, other than that they can get away with it.

[darkblueslider]

I've heard the Answer to the "Can we import from US Question" was:

"Vista Ultimate and Vista Corporate are the only two version which are not keyed to a specific market/country.

IE, Home Premium won't activate if you import it.

Source is apparently the MSDN (beta test) e-mails.

Not 100% Sure - haven't been getting the emails myself.

[Guy]

379.99 USD United States Dollars = 196.835 GBP United Kingdom Pounds

1 USD = 0.518000 GBP
1 GBP = 1.93050 USD

So vista works out at about £240 inc vat and import taxes at todays exchange rates.

If we can get a few orders together, it might be worth a trip over there and post them back as gifts? Im not sure on the legality of that, but Im sure someone else will comment if its not legal

if anything did come of this, id put an order in

[DeSean]

I dunno if this is relevant but...

I know somebody who runs XP64 bought from America. Runs fine. I know thats just XP though...

[TheAnimus]

tbh how are they going to stop it working, its just a case it might be illegal.

for instance they can't look at your IP block and see who allocated it, as its not even 95% reliable way of been sure there in the country rather than just been on a network there.

MS haven't ever restricted the user local based on country sold, so i doubt they'd start.

[Jumpinbeans]

They have restricted software based on country before. When they introduced 128bit encryption in IE they were forbidden from exporting this from the US for a period of time. So we all had to make do with the less secure version for a few months.

[nuggster]

We could all vote with our wallets........that is, don't buy it! Do you really NEED Vista at the moment?!!

[kalniel]

No, but I want it