From: Adam <""4thwormcastfromthemolehill\"{at}the field.near
the bridge">

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/20/exchange_rate_ripoff/

"The item in question was EqualLogic's PS3900 iSCSI box, and it's
going to list here for œ40,000, not the œ34,000 originally quoted. Given
that the US price is $67,000, that's 1.67 dollars to the pound.

To turn it around the other way, œ40,000 would buy $78,000 at the bank
today. The $11,000 difference would be more than enough to cover flying to
the US to buy the box there, even allowing for the need to pay (and then
reclaim) UK sales tax on the way back.

According to the Economic History Services website, the last time the
average US-UK exchange rate was below 1.7 was in 2003*.

However, EqualLogic is far from being the only US company that's trying to
turn the financial clock back by four years. For example, Adaptec recently
announced a NAS box at $15,695 in the US and œ9,995 in the UK, an exchange
rate of 1.57, and AirMagnet's latest LAN analyser comes in at $9,995 or
œ6,000, a 1.67 conversion rate.

The tough bit is persuading companies to explain what that 15 to 20 per
cent loading pays for. According to EqualLogic's UK rep, the US price is
"uplifted and then converted into sterling to account for the cost of
business to deliver this product overseas"."

Adam

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