Adobe rebuffs price disparity in the Indian channel market

Meet the software

resellers in India. Already worried over the market constraints and

software taxation, the partners are reeling under the price disparity

of Adobe products in the Indian channel marketplace, that has only

added to their woes. The lack of software OEM's rationalize approach

is fueling the discontent among the channel partners, who are facing

an acute competition from the e-commerce websites, offering cheaper

Adobe software products, as well as from the overseas market. The

Adobe Creative Suite Premium version is priced at close to Rs 1.10

lakh in the Indian channel market, while the software vendor sells it

for Rs 84,000 via the Web. The sub-distributors and resellers are

finding it hard to sell software OEM's products in the traditional

channel place.

Speaking to The DQ

Week, a Delhi-based sub-distributor on conditions of anonymity

said that, there has been a huge price disparity in Adobe products in

the Indian market as compared to the international stores. "The

customers look at foreign pricing before they make a purchase, and we

have been loosing buyers significantly. This is also impacting the

country, which is loosing commendable amount of moolah in taxes,"

he said. According to another market source, the average difference

is somewhere between 25 to 35 percent in Adobe pricing in the Indian

context. "Even with the import duty, logistics management and

government taxation, the prices should not have been this much in the

country, as this software OEM often justify. The dealers are also

loosing sales as customers are increasingly buying software products

online," the source said.

The DQ Week

contacted Shriram Krishnamachari, Head-Channels and Distribution

for India and SAARC region at Adobe Systems, who said that the

software OEM attracts various taxes and levies like sales tax, VAT

and Octroi etc, which are not under their control. "Adobe sets

the pricing of its products based on extensive market research and

in-depth pricing studies conducted routinely throughout the products'

life-cycle," he said. Adobe products are all priced differently,

and can be bought in different permutations and combinations. "We

have various volume licensing programs for different industry

segments. A customer can upgrade at a reduced price. So one can

upgrade from a point product to a suite or the existing version of a

suite to a new version of that suite. All these will have a different

pricing," added Krishnamachari.

In India, Adobe follows a

two-tier model and has two national distributors, Redington and

Ingram Micro and operates through more than 100 authorized partners.

Softcell Technologies and Futuresoft Solutions are among the software

OEM's key partners, who did not respond to the query posted by The

DQ Week.