Bill Gates just appeared on the BBC’s 10 O’Clock news to promote the launch of Vista (he’s in London today). Huw Edwards, the newsreader, had been well briefed and asked good questions, one of which was why people in the UK will pay so much more for Vista than their US counterparts. Gates’ answer was that he wasn’t aware of how the exchange rate fluctuated, but that they had a ‘global pricing strategy’ and tried to charge the same for their products across different markets.

A quick check of the price of Vista in the UK compared to the US will show that that is patently untrue. The Amazon cost of Vista Ultimate is £353.99 in the UK, and $378.99 across the pond. The US price in sterling today is £194, which makes Vista Ultimate a massive £159 cheaper in the US!

I don’t think it’s fair to call that a global pricing strategy, and frankly it is unacceptable. Microsoft is able to charge so much more simply because the software market in the UK is more expensive, and it is taking advantage of people.

Gates is either not aware of the issues or he lied. I doubt that he would lie on television, and so perhaps somebody should tell him about the price difference?

This raises an interesting sidenote about the BBC decision to use Edwards rather than a technology expert like Paul Mason, Guto Harri or Rory Cellan-Jones; Edwards seemed to feel unable to put Gates under pressure on the subject of prices, which meant that Gates was able to simply say that he wasn’t aware that there was a problem. Perhaps somebody with more expertise would have been more successful.