The argument can certainly be made that Adobe’s various Creative Suite offerings provide good value for money – assuming that you make full use of every component. However as I wrote in my review “they certainly don’t come cheap. At least not in the UK”.

What was so galling was the disparity between UK and US pricing. Comparing the UK and US prices for the full Master Collection – £1969 (£2264 inc VAT) and US$2499 – I pointed out that ”even with sterling at a two-year low against the dollar, at the time of writing that should equate to a price of around £1350. That’s a saving of over £600 before VAT – over 30% – enough to pay for a transatlantic trip.” Our esteemed editor,Tim Danton, had been so incensed by the pricing difference for Acrobat 9 Pro Extended that he started a rip-off pricing campaign. 

Well things have certainly changed since then and suddenly Adobe’s current UK pricing is looking something of a bargain…

Not that Adobe has lowered its UK pricing I hasten to add.

However. with a further 25% slide in the pound-dollar exchange rate since September’s CS4 launch to today’s figure of around £0.7 to the $, today’s equivalent UK pricing for the US price would be nearer to £1750 exc VAT. If the suites had launched today, the disparity might not have merited a mention and certainly wouldn’t have warranted a campaign.

On one level then, the plunging exchange rate has proved a vindication of Adobe’s position – and clearly there are a whole host of other similar financial variables that the company has to take into account when determining UK prices.

However I can’t help noticing that, even with a once-in-a-lifetime collapse of the financial markets and the value of sterling having fallen off a cliff to a 20-year low that was completely unimaginable back in September, our American friends are still currently around 10% better off!