Microsoft Office in China Retails for $29

[bounty]

95% pirate rate in China and your conclusion is "A lot of Americans are spoiled" :>

I guess that really depends on the pirate rate here in USA. If you figure (cost of office / GDP per capita) you get a % of GDP per person for the cost of office. At 29$ for China and 200$ for USA that seems to come out to around double the cost for China still.

So the real question is, what would the piracy rate for China v.s. US look like if the cost of office in China was 15 dollars?

 

[bounty]

Course things might look different if they adjusted GDP for national debt.

 

[pharge]

"The result? An 800-percent increase in sales since the trial began in September 2008, with an estimated 80,000 copies sold since then. Pleased with the results, Microsoft even said that it plans to keep the new pricetag."

hmm.... am I getting this wrong?... MS only sold about 100 copies for that duration of time in "whole" China, a country with > 1200,000,000 population?... hmmm.... that's pretty sad for MS's marketing dept in China...

 

[pharge]

sorry... I mean before the price cut... I need the edit function...>_

 

[ssddx]

It was stated that more than just americans are spoiled. I think he was refering to the childish outlook many take.

China might be getting a great deal if you consider the price in flat USD. However, in %wage it still equates to more than we pay on average in america.

MS knows china is going to pirate the hell out of any software. They simply lowered the price for them (to make it more fair to their wage difference.) Yes we get the shaft (in making up the most profit) but then again, we have paid the same prices for years so why start complaining now?

As for how MS has us "by the balls"... If there is ever a real "need" for the software it is often provided by the company in question. ie, schools often have computers for student use and businesses have corporate licences. Also, why must the versionused be the newest/greatest. I've used office 2003 for years and it still works perfectly.

 

[Kryan]

Office 2003 ftw. seriously. no need to buy anything new. (yes, i have one legal copy!)

 

[salem80]

I hope other companies Like Adobe , Autodesk,etc do the same .
because the thousand's of dollar Price not helping in the marking .

 

[nachowarrior]

just what we need, welfare in the private sector as well.

 

[Guest]

I love these people who play the "poor China" card when Chinese have the highest savings rate in the world, hold the largest amount of US national debt but are somehow poor. They all can seem to buy a computer somehow but can't pay for Office? Then the next argument is about the poor farmer who can pay for it, well there are plenty of poor people in the US who can't afford it either so what. Then people will say, but the Chinese currency is not worth a lot or the don't have a good salary. The average in a big city is around 6000RMB a month which is close to 1000US a month doesn't seem like a lot, yeah but the cost of living in China is next to nothing, you can rent a decent 2 bedroom apartment for 1000RMB a month not to mention you don't really need a car, and food is super cheap I can feed a whole family at a restaurant for 50RMB. But Americans make so much money. But what is the cost of living in America? I don't buy it, it is just another excuse for the thieving Chinese to steal more American products. I say we boycott everything we can that comes out of China.

 

[Guest]

On a recent trip to China I was able to purchase the whole suite for
Office 2007 for about $3.00. Did I pay too much?

Sidenote: I purchased some counterfeit products at a Sam's Club in Beijing as well.

$29 dollar legal copies are still priced $28 too high for the Chinese. They believe everything should be free to them and the world owes a debt to them for some reason...