Heya!

We're thinking about buying a 3dsmax 2012 license here in the studio. We have been using a small modeller (silo3d) up until now. The time might have come to upgrade to a more versatile and powerful package.

When i went to the Autodesk site, to see if i could buy it online i found out that a small disclaimer on the site said:

"Purchases on this store are only permitted by by licensed customers within Canada, the USA and its territories"

I then went to search for a retailer in Europe (The Netherlands to be more specific). I found out that there's a huge difference in price.

If i buy it directly from the Autodesk Store the price is $3,540.55 (€ 2 489). If i buy it from my local dealer, the price is a lot higher €3,800.00 (without taxes, around €4,500 including taxes). I was wondering if anyone else has been in this situation, what they decided upon and if i'm missing something or that i just need to gulp up those extra euro's.

Thanks for your thoughts!

TheBat

Doesn't VAT add something like 20% to the cost? I'm not sure if VAT is added into the base price or if its part of the taxes... It's probably stuffed into the base price and you're getting dicked over by other taxes?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_a...x#EU_countries

Yeah most of the time this is due to VAT.

Still the difference seems quite huge, you should just contact Autodesk and ask them to recomend a better local seller.

If its not VAT then the extra cash is probably going into the "we know you're going to sue us EU, like you keep sue'ing Microsoft" legal defense fund... heh.

Thanks for your replies! I'll see what i can do from contacting autodesk / the reseller.

Originally Posted by Mark Dygert

If its not VAT then the extra cash is probably going into the "we know you're going to sue us EU, like you keep sue'ing Microsoft" legal defense fund... heh.

Probably yes.

VAT doesn't cont because you get it back from your tax department if you are a company and have a VAT number yourself.

It's more like "we charge EU and €clients more because we CAN."

Same goes to several other dealers where $ = € pricing like Adobe and NIK Software (they do post-effect software). It sucks of course but you can't do a lot about it.

I know there is an exception. The student versions which you could buy were much cheaper here, don´t ask me why.I had to pay the same amount of money for a lifetime version whereas non-eu countries had to pay the same for a limited version.

we had the same issue here in Australia (was the same when I was in Germany) price is about twice as much or at least 160% of the us price. Upon asking autodesk about options to buy it via their us website they aborted communication. Lucky we have another studio in the US but I hate their attitude.

the Eula for their products has also come under heavy critism. their autocad license is pretty Naziesque.
http://worldcadaccess.typepad.com/bl...sk_licenc.html

it'S not just autodesk inflating prices outside north america. excuses include setting up a local support infrastructure, localizing the software and so on.

but i suppose they'd do it anyway because they can get away with it.

These practices, by Autodesk and Adobe, to sell internationally at hugely inflated prices - and to restrict usage of products sold outside of North America to only within North America - really is a kick in teeth to international customers. I would question if their stance restricting usage to North America for those products can really be legally defended. Surely if I buy the product, I then have the right to take it anywhere in the world I wish, and use it where-ever I wish!