thing: Er, cheers, but £881 GBP converts to $1,719 USD. Ouch.
Hmmmm...
The currency exchange rate was intended to be fatuous.
With international commerce and pricing there is no such thing as "converts". No matter where you live, QXP8 will be a bargain at any price. Its the best software of its type this planet has. You can quote me on that.
As for pricing, every company sets prices for selling their commodities in each market depending on a lot of complex factors that many of us are not aware of. For example, I live in Canada close to the US border and right now our currencies are on par. Until recently it was possible for Canadians to go across the border to buy certain Japanese cars for many thousands of dollars less than the price in Canada.
And I'm not talking peanuts. Using an average of U.S. dollar exchange rates from January to June 2006, we have determined that the typical vehicle is $5,842 (17 percent) more expensive in Canada than in the United States. To take this down to a more comprehensible level, consider the case of the Subaru Impreza WRX. In Canada, this sporty sedan lists for $35,495, while in the U.S., it bases at $24,995. And I don't mean that "until recently" to indicate that prices have normalized: I meant it to indicate that due to recent enforced policy changes at car US dealerships, designed to protect Canadian dealerships, right now American car dealerships WILL NOT SELL to Canadians.
Of course, Apple computers, even when the Canadian dollar was 10% STRONGER than the US dollar about a year and a half ago, STILL were priced on the Apple Canada website at about 10% more in Canadian dollars than in the US, for a Canadian price / cost penalty of about 20%.
Sometimes, ironically, it works the other way around: for an example, just check out the prices of any specific made-in-America Snapon tool box in the catalogs on the Snapon.com (US) and Snapon.ca (Canadian) websites. The boxes are all made in the USA but identical items are priced to sell for considerably LESS in Canada than they do in the States.
Of course, all this means nothing when you talk about the price of publishing tools, like QXP.
If a tool makes you money... then it's a bargain, and you pay for it as a cost of doing business. If you are working in an environment in which the tool is going to make you a whole big stinking HEAP of money, then you buy it no matter what it costs. The economy in Britain is amazingly robust compared to the economy over here in the Colonies and wages in Mother England are amazingly high. You can't really expect identical global pricing for a "tool" that will increase your productivity (and income) by $100,000.00 per annum if you live in London, but only by $35,000.00 per annum if you live in Toronto and only by $7,000.00 per annum if you happen to live in Madagascar or Tierra del Fuego.
We feel your pain. Really.
Binky