March 06, 2006

Rant

It's The World Wide Web, You Maggots

I've been playing with the trial version of Paint Shop Pro X, and it does almost everything I want, so I decided to buy it. Online price is only US$89, and they throw in a free copy of Animation Shop 3. I don't know if I even want Animation Shop, but hey, it's free.

So I log in and start placing my order, and add a couple of extras (two resource kits for the price of one, $29.95), and then I get to the name-and-address part, and it won't let me choose Australia for my country.

Because it's the US and Canada online store. Only.

Hmm. I try corel.com.au. Wow, they must have spent minutes setting up that site. But at least they have an online store. Shame that it doesn't actually work.

So I take a quick look at a couple of online computer stores here in Oz. They want AU$249 - just over twice the US price at current exchange rates. (And that's discounted - RRP is AU$299.)

Really smooth distribution channel you've got there, guys.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:43 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

1 Buy it from Provantage in the USA. They ship to Australia. Total US$117.17 including shipping.

http://www.provantage.com/corel-pspxengpc~7CORK04A.htm

Posted by: Ray at March 06, 2006 05:23 PM (kET0Q)

2 Which illustrates how crazy the situation is. $80 for the software, $40 for shipping.
I don't need a box with a CD. I don't want a box with a CD. I have too many boxes and too many CDs.
I don't even need to download it. I've already downloaded it. All I need is an activation key.
But no.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at March 06, 2006 07:17 PM (Ob+DM)

3 Heh.. I've been using GIMP for Windows, lately. The newest version isn't too bad, once you get used to the way they've molested the Windows interface. I've already used it to create several animated GIFs.

Posted by: Tatterdemalian at March 07, 2006 02:58 PM (IOFN3)

4 **cough** keygen **cough**
Sorry, when a company is this Internet-inept and customer-unfriendly, they deserve to lose the sale. And that's said as a Canadian about a Canadian company.
Morons.
Paul

Posted by: Light & Dark at March 07, 2006 07:31 PM (M9GWX)

5 I was denied for comment content. So I'll try this again- I have IIX, and the key to it. If you'd be content with that, I could condense and send it.

Posted by: L. at March 10, 2006 01:49 PM (V8C2g)

6 Thanks for the offer, but no.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at March 10, 2006 05:35 PM (RbYVY)

7 It wasn't always like this. Prior to Corel's buyout of Jasc, anybody could order Paint Shop Pro from their website.
On the upside, you might be able to find a full legal copy of prior versions (e.g. PSP8) on those CDs that come with computer magazines.

Posted by: Jojo at March 11, 2006 09:09 PM (D0Q7l)

8 That doesn't surprise me.
A small company like Jasc doesn't care about distribution channels; a sale is a sale.
A huge company like Microsoft can get the distribution channels to work - more or less - everywhere in the world.
It's medium-sized companies like Corel that tend to suffer from this particular problem.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at March 11, 2006 10:18 PM (OcZOd)

9 Pixy, did you ever get your program?

Posted by: MLynn at March 19, 2006 04:15 AM (03mn7)

10 No. We hates them. We hates them forever.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at March 22, 2006 05:42 PM (RbYVY)

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