Conversions at todays exchange rate of £1.00 = $1.95. If you did a straight conversion the UK prices for both would be:
78.92 UKP for Home Premium, Differnce of £56.02 which is 42% increase in price
128.11 UKP for Ultimate, Difference of £86.88 which is 40% increase in price.
How can Amazon/Microsoft don't know who is to blame on this but i think I can guess as I see that the marketplace price, justify the near 1:1 conversion rate. Do you think that microsoft forget that you don't just replace a $ sign with a £ sign in prices.
Thankfully the OEM prices aren't as bad and it looks like much more of a deal at mircodirect they are:
£77.32 for Windows Vista-Home Premium 32Bit
£121.01 for WindowsVistaUltimate32Bit
were as the US OEM Version are:
Home Premium: $120.89
Vista Ultimate $205.31
Which are much more like the US upgrade prices, Ok you can't transfer license like you can with full retail versions but I don't think I've ever transfered a personal license I know I have at work, so OEM can be a steal, it will install on a preinstalled system which I have done and it worked off the bat, see blog passim.
So is this a case of Micro$oft getting greedy or another case of rip off Britian.
